Integração física: motor do desenvolvimento econômico no Cone Sul

Abstract

The MERCOSUL has been, in fact, one of the most successful attempts of subregional integration in Latin America, during the 90´s. The slowness in the progress of some of the instruments established in the Treaty of Assunção of 1991, as it is the case of the coordination of the macroeconomic politics between the members and the implantation of a Common External Tariff, have been contributing to generate a situation of political and economical crisis and social perplexity, after the fast commercial progresses of the period 1991/98. In that context, the situation of the sub-regional physical infrastructure and the exports configuration have been the main causes of productive inefficiency and of reduction in the MERCOSUL´s participation on international trade. The Meeting of Presidents of South America, accomplished in Brasilia in September of 2000, established an action program to strengthen that infrastructure, seeking to facilitate the physical integration and as consequence, to improve the productivity, the composition of the exports and the regional economical development. This work looks for that physical integration that, facilitating the trade and reducing the overall operational costs, will allow to increase the competitiveness of the block and a better insertion of the MERCOSUL in the world trade, favoring simultaneously the overcome of the current situation of widespread pessimism