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Uruguay Free-Trade Zones
The free-trade zones that Lacalle mentioned were
already
operating in Uruguay during the late 1980s as an important
part
of the Sanguinetti administration's strategy to encourage
both
foreign investment and regional trade. Under legislation
passed
in late 1987, free-trade zones such as the ones in Colonia
and
Nueva Palmira (in Colonia Department) became attractive
sites for
investors for several reasons: users were exempted from
all
Uruguayan taxes, except for social security taxes on
Uruguayan
workers; all imported goods and services entering the
zones were
exempt from customs duties or taxes; goods and services
reexported from the zones were exempt from taxes; and
commercial
or government service monopolies were not applicable
within the
zones, so that no company was forced to deal with the
State
Insurance Bank, for example. Restrictions on free-trade
zones
prohibited companies from duplicating existing industries,
such
as textile manufacturing. Thus, the thrust of the program
was to
attract innovative companies to Uruguay. As of early 1990,
the
free-trade zones were attracting a good deal of attention,
but it
was too soon to tell what impact they would have on the
Uruguayan
economy.
* * *
A superb and very readable introduction to Latin
American
economic history, with references to Uruguay, is Celso
Furtado's
Economic Development of Latin America, which
focuses on
major themes such as import-substitution
industrialization. For a
more detailed picture of Uruguay's economic history until
the
1970s, the best English-language source is M.H.J. Finch's
A
Political Economy of Uruguay since 1870. Few
English-language
books have focused exclusively on Uruguay's more recent
economic
progress. A good source in Spanish is La Crisis
uruguaya y el
problema nacional by the Centro de Investigaciones
Económicas.
Several references examine individual aspects of
Uruguay's
economy. Two good articles on the labor movement are
Arturo S.
Bronstein's "The Evolution of Labour Relations in Uruguay"
and
Juan Rial Roade's "Uruguay." Larry A. Sjaastad's "Debt,
Depression, and Real Rates of Interest in Latin America"
explains
Uruguay's early involvement in the debt crisis.
Basic economic data on Uruguay are provided in the
International Monetary Fund's International Financial
Statistics, in the Inter-American Development Bank's
Economic and Social Progress in Latin America,
published
annually, and in the Latin American Regional
Reports
series of periodicals. Two useful Uruguayan economic
periodicals
are Guía financiera and Búsqueda. (For
further
information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of December 1990
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