Glossary -- Uruguay
- ALADI (Asociación Latinoamericana de
Integración)
- Latin American Integration Association. Headquartered in
Montevideo, ALADI was established in August 1980 to replace the
twenty-year-old Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA).
ALADI's members included Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
Instead of uniform tariff cuts, ALADI advocated a regional tariff
preference for goods originating in member states and tariffs
scaled according to a member country's level of economic
development: most developed, intermediate, or least developed.
- autonomous entities (entes
autónomos)
- Autonomous government agencies or state enterprises performing
various industrial, commercial, or social services. The
constitution stipulated that these bodies were to have a degree of
autonomy or decentralization as established by laws enacted with
the approval of an absolute majority of the full membership of each
chamber of the General Assembly. They were administered by five- to
seven-member boards of directors or directors general. Members were
either elected by the Senate or appointed by the president with the
consent of the Senate. The degree of autonomy or decentralization
varied. For example, the constitution stipulated that postal,
customs, port authority, and public health services were not to be
fully decentralized, but rather granted only as much autonomy as
was compatible with control by the executive.
The autonomous agencies could be divided into two general
classifications: the first was concerned with education, welfare,
and culture; the second, with industry and commerce. In the first
classification, autonomous agencies supervised the University of
the Republic and the councils for secondary and elementary
education, as well as the training for teachers. Others were
concerned with radio, television, the theater, housing, welfare,
and social security. In the second classification, agencies
supervised the waterworks, fishing industry, ports, national
merchant marine, and production of petroleum products, cement,
alcoholic beverages, and electric power. In the commercial field,
autonomous agencies supervised the Central Bank of Uruguay, the
Social Welfare Bank, the State Insurance Bank, and the Mortgage
Bank.
A three-fifths vote of the full membership of both chambers
of the General Assembly was required for the passage of a law to
allow the admission of private capital in the organization or
expansion of the assets of any of the autonomous entities, and the
contribution of private capital, if allowed, was never to be
greater than that of the national government. The state could also
participate in the industrial, agricultural, or commercial
activities of enterprises formed by workers' cooperatives, if it
had the consent of the enterprise. The autonomous entities could
not conduct any business not specifically assigned to them by law,
nor could they expend any of their resources for purposes foreign
to their usual activities.
- consumer price index (CPI)
- A statistical measure of sustained change in the price level
weighted according to spending patterns.
- Enterprise for the Americas
Initiative
- A plan announced by President George H.W. Bush on June 27,
1990, calling for the United States to negotiate agreements with
selected Latin American countries to reduce their official debt to
the United States and make funds available through this
restructuring for environmental programs; to stimulate private
investment; and to take steps to promote extensive trade
liberalization with the goal of establishing free trade throughout
the Western Hemisphere.
- fiscal year
- Same as calendar year.
- GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade)
- An intergovernmental agency related to the United Nations and
headquartered in Geneva, GATT was established in 1948 as a
multilateral treaty with the aim of liberalizing and stabilizing
world trade. GATT's fundamental principles included
nondiscriminatory trade among members, protection of domestic trade
through the customs tariff, and agreement on tariff levels through
negotiations among the contracting parties. The Uruguay Round of
major multilateral trade negotiations, the eighth such round of
negotiations, began at Punta del Este in September 1986.
- GDP (gross domestic product)
- A measure of the total value of goods and services produced by
the domestic economy during a given period, usually one year.
Obtained by adding the value contributed by each sector of the
economy in the form of profits, compensation to employees, and
depreciation (consumption of capital). The income arising from
investments and possessions owned abroad is not included. Hence,
the term domestic is used to distinguish GDP from GNP
(q.v.).
- GNP (gross national product)
- The total market value of all final goods and services produced
by an economy during a year. Obtained by adding GDP (q.v.)
and the income received from abroad by residents, less payments
remitted abroad to nonresidents.
- IMF (International Monetary Fund)
- Established along with the World Bank (q.v.) in 1945,
the IMF is a specialized agency affiliated with the United Nations
that takes responsibility for stabilizing international exchange
rates and payments. The main business of the IMF is the provision
of loans to its members when they experience balance of payments
difficulties. These loans often carry conditions that require
substantial internal economic adjustments by the recipients.
- import-substitution industrialization
- An economic development strategy that emphasizes the growth of
domestic industries, often by import protection using tariff and
nontariff measures. Proponents favor the export of industrial goods
over primary products.
- peso
- The traditional unit of currency, first issued in 1862.
Replaced by the Uruguayan new peso (q.v.) in 1975 at the
rate of 1,000 old pesos for each new peso. The term peso
is often used as a short form to refer to the Uruguayan new peso in
the post-1975 era.
- terms of trade
- The number of units that must be given up for one unit of goods
by each party, e.g., nation, to a transaction. The terms of trade
are said to move in favor of the party that gives up fewer units of
goods than it did previously for one unit of goods received and
against the party that gives up more units of goods for one unit of
goods received. In international economics, the concept of "terms
of trade" plays an important role in evaluating exchange
relationships between nations.
- Uruguayan new peso
- The Uruguayan unit of currency, consisting of 100 centésimos.
Often referred to in short form as the peso. The Uruguayan new peso
was introduced in 1975 to replace the old peso at the rate of 1,000
old pesos for each new peso. Since 1975 the exchange rate, linked
to the United States dollar, has been frequently adjusted, with the
value of the new peso declining. The average exchange rate per US$1
was N$Ur101 in 1985; N$Ur152 in 1986; N$Ur227 in 1987; N$Ur359 in
1988; N$Ur606 in 1989; and N$Ur1,171 in 1990. So extreme has the
devaluation of the peso been that in 1991 Uruguayan authorities
began to consider introducing another new peso, equal in value to
1,000 units of the existing new peso.
- value-added tax (VAT)
- An incremental tax applied to the value added at each stage of
the processing of a raw material or the production and distribution
of a commodity. It is calculated as the difference between the
product value at a given stage and the cost of all materials and
services purchased as inputs. The VAT is a form of indirect
taxation, and its impact on the ultimate consumer is the same as
that of a sales tax.
- World Bank
- Informal name used to designate a group of three affiliated
international institutions: the International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International
Development Association (IDA), and the International Finance
Corporation (IFC). The IBRD, established in 1945, has the primary
purpose of providing loans to developing countries for productive
projects. The IDA, a legally separate loan fund administered by the
staff of the IBRD, was set up in 1960 to furnish credits to the
poorest of developing countries on much easier terms than those of
conventional IBRD loans. The IFC, founded in 1956, supplements the
activities of the IBRD through loans and assistance designed
specifically to encourage the growth of productive private
enterprises in less developed countries. To participate in the
World Bank group, member states must first belong to the IMF
(q.v.).
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