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Geography
Argentina is a Federal Republic covering
an area of 2,776,889 sq.km. It consists of
22 provinces, a federal district containing
the capital Buenos Aires, the national territories
of Tierra del Fuego and the Antarctic. To
the West, its border with Chile is marked
by Andes, while to the north-west and north
Argentina adjoins Paraguay, Brazil and Uruguay.
Argentina's central regions - the pampas
- are highly fertile, while the forests of
the North and the Andes contain considerably
under exploited resources.
Demography
In 1992, Argentina's population was estimated
at 33 million, up from 28.0 million in the
census of 1980. Approximately 85% of the
population is of European descent, the result
of large scale immigration, 35% being of
Italian and 25% of Spanish descent together.
The 15% that is non-European in origin includes
a relatively small number of pure Indians
and Mestizos, as well as people of Middle
Eastern origin, particularly Lebanese and
Syrians.
Argentina is highly urbanised: in 1990, 86
% of the population was urban, compared with
74% in 1960. Greater Buenos Aires, of which
the federal capital is part, has 10.9 million
inhabitants, almost a third of the country's
total. The three provinces of Santa Fe, Cordoba
and Buenos Aires account for half the population.
The annual rate of population growth averaged
1.5 % between 1960 and 1990, one of the lowest
in Latin America.
In 1990, 30 % of the population was under
15 and the literacy rate was 95 %. The labour
force was estimated at 12.8 million. About
45 % of the labour force is employed in commerce
and services, including government departments
and state owned enterprises, and approximately
25% is self-employed..
History and Political Situation
After the federal government was founded
in 1853, a large flow of immigrants and capital
(notably British) from Europe rapidly developed
the i nfrastructure of Argentina, making
it the richest country in Latin America by
the early 20th Century.
The major contributor to national wealth
was the creation of a successful export trade
in agricultural commodities to Western Europe,
with the development of ranching and grain
production on a large scale, the opening
of the interior through the construction
of railways, and the conquest of Patagonia.
In the early 20th Century political power
was in the hands of a conservative elite.
The first mass movement was the Radical Party
(Union Civica Radical) who won the 1916 elections
after the introduction of secret male suffrage.
The Radicals continued to rule until 1930
when a military coup began a new period of
conservative rule, initiating a long cycle
of military interventions and politicisation
of the armed forces. The 1930-43 period was
characterised by electoral fraud and the
exclusion of the Radicals. A military coup
took place in 1943, and led to the rise to
power of General Juan Domingo Peron in the
1946 elections. Thus began the era of Peronism,
Argentina's second mass movement of this
century, which was to last until 1983.
Throughout his political career, General
Peron, aided by his charismatic wife, Eva
Duarte Peron (Evita), pursued nationalist
and populist policies, commencing with large
scale intervention in every aspect of the
economy and the expansion of the role and
privileges of the armed forces. The Peron-inspired
constitution of 1953 established that the
federal government, and those of the provinces,
are based on the separation of executive,
legislative and judicial powers. Executive
power is vested in a president who is elected
by an electoral college for a six year term;
the legislature is a bicameral congress,
the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The
Chamber of Deputies has 254 members elected
for a term of four years with half of the
seats renewed every two years. There are
46 seats in the Senate, the senators being
nominated by the provincial legislatures
for a term of nine years with one third of
the seats renewed every three years. Each
province elects its governor and legislature,
the provincial governments being financially
heavily dependent on the federal government.
In 1955 General Peron was overthrown. The
subsequent political situation in Argentina
was unstable, unsettled by the continuing
strength of the Peronists, growing political
extremism, the hostility of the armed forces
towards the Peronists and rising inflation.
In general elections held in 1973 Peron returned
to power to face growing political tension
and inflationary pressures. After his death
in 1974 Argentina was briefly ruled by his
widow Isabel Peron until 1976, and then by
a military junta returned under General Videla,
and briefly President Viola, whose tasks
were to curb the rising left wing guerrilla
activity and reorganise the economy. In December
1981 Viola was replaced by General Galtieri
whose administration came to an abrupt end
in July 1982, following the unsuccessful
invasion of the Falkland Islands.
Interim administration elections were held
in October 1983 and won unexpectedly by the
Radical party. Dr. Raul Alfonsin, leader
of the Radicals, took office as President
in December 1983 with a narrow majority in
the Chamber of Deputies. He partly achieved
his aim of closing the half century long
cycle of military intervention and political
instability by building a stable democracy,
but was indecisive in implementing tough
measures to reform the economy when he had
a popular mandate to do so. In the May 1989
elections, President Carlos Menem was elected
as the first Peronist president since 1976,
and assumed office in July (six months early).
Menem followed a dramatic policy, jettisoning
campaign talk of large wage increases and
other expansionist and redistributive policies
for an austerity and stabilisation programme,
marked by efforts to cut government spending
and introduce privatisation of big companies.
In the election of 1991, the Peronists and
their allies won most Congress seats and
also increased their number of seats in the
provincial chambers of deputies.
Economy
The Argentine economy has great strength
in agriculture, primarily in beef and grain
grown on the fertile pampas in central Argentina.
These strengths had been dissipated by forty
years of populist and nationalist economic
policies, leaving Argentina with a bloated
public sector and uncontrolled fiscal deficits
and monetary emission at the end of the 1980s.
The instability of the domestic economy has
prompted many Argentines to move their wealth
abroad - flight capital is estimated at up
to $50 billion. At the end of the 1980s Argentina
had a dual economy: a bankrupt formal economy
burdened by high overseas debt service requirements
and a reasonably prosperous private sector
with high external balances.
The Menem administration began implementing
radical economic policies immediately on
assuming office in July 1989, inheriting
an inflation rate exceeding 100% monthly.
Under Nestor Rapanelli, a director of Bunge
y Born, a price and wage freeze was agreed,
and the exchange rate pegged at 650 Australs
to the US dollar. In the autumn, pressure
for wage rises to keep up with inflation
(then down to 15% monthly) forced private
sector employers to concede increases, followed
by the public sector. The parallel market
Austral collapsed against the dollar, leading
to a 54% devaluation, and the due date of
internal government debt was deferred for
two years.
Rapanelli's successor, Erman Gonzalez announced
the elimination of exchange and price controls
and promised to eliminate the printing of
Austral without backing. In spite of these
positive liberalising steps, it was clear
that reduction of excessive monetary emission
would require resolution of Argentina's fiscal
deficit. The failure to address both problems
simultaneously was at the root of Argentina's
persistent bouts of hyper inflation.
In March 1991 Domingo Erman Gonzalez's successor,
froze the Austral at 10,000 = US$ 1 and made
the currency fully convertible. He guaranteed
not to print money to fund government spending,
and the Banco Central may only issue currency
when fully backed by foreign exchange reserves.
The results of the so-called Convertibility
Plan have been good. Wholesale price inflation
has dropped from an annual rate of 512% in
January 1991 to 25% in 1992. Meanwhile the
economy grew at an average 8% in 1991 and
1992, with much lower interest rates and
greater consumer confidence preceding a revival
in spending. Also firm domestic demand, especially
for investment and consumer goods, doubled
imports in 1991 and this trend continues.
Without the development of new export products
and markets and without a domestic long-term
institutional saving mechanism it is difficult
to imagine how the country can finance the
level of investment necessary to raise its
growth potential.
The government is continuing its economic
liberalisation programme, with the aim of
reducing the costs imposed by high production
taxes, excessive social contribution levied
on wages, and restrictive practices, so as
to force Argentine companies to become internationally
competitive. Privatisation in the areas of
energy, telecommunications and transport
is continuing in order to restore state-owned
companies to economic viability and halt
their drain on the Treasury. President Menem
also proposed significant cuts in the civil
service and a reduction in central government
bureaucracy.
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