Why industrial decline has been so stark in Brazil
No other country has seen manufacturing as a share of GDP vanish so fast
THE PEOPLE of São Bernardo do Campo, a city near São Paulo, are called batateiros, or potato farmers. Yet they are better known for manufacturing. Almost a century ago they made furniture. In the 1950s they started turning out cars. Soon the area that includes the city, known as ABC after its largest towns’ initials, became the biggest industrial zone in Latin America. One worker there, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, rose to the top of the metalworkers’ union and, eventually, to the top of Brazilian politics.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “South America’s rust belt”
From the March 5th 2022 edition
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