Word: iapi
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Path to "Self-Sufficiency." Perón's take-over of the economy was a casebook example of dictator-knows-best fumbling. His goal was industrialization-nationalistic "self-sufficiency." The main tool was a state foreign-trading agency called (from its initials in Spanish) IAPI...
...manipulating exchange rates, IAPI bought meat and grains from farmers at low prices, sold the commodities abroad for whatever the traffic would bear. In the famished postwar world, lAPI's profits were immense; it used the income to buy industrial machines and raw materials abroad for resale cheap to Peronista manufacturers. Industry-subsidized, tariff-protected and inefficient, but nonetheless industry-grew 63% between 1943 and 1956. Argentina began or expanded the production of chemicals, canned goods, paint, paper, machine tools, motorcycles, tires, tobacco, plastics, plywood, surgical instruments, steel furniture, motors, matches, cement, batteries, refrigerators, TV sets. At length industrial...
Reconstruction. The conquering generals quickly sought expert economic advice from Raul Prebisch, who was general manager of the Central Bank before Perón. Almost at once they scrapped IAPI, devalued the peso. Farmers were again able to keep, with some exceptions, what their -exported crops earned. The effect: a fattened peso return for agriculture. Planting and animal breeding zoomed. The cattle population is up from a low of 40 million to 49 million, i.e., 2½ head for every Argentine v. one-half in the U.S. This year's wheat harvest was 36% greater than last year...
...British-owned railways and the U.S.-owned telephone system and to build up a creditable merchant marine. But millions went down the drain in a reckless buying spree to round up foreign equipment for the President's grandiose five-year industrialization plan. On top of that, IAPI, the state trading agency, demanded such extortionate prices for Argentine products that the country lost a large part of its foreign market. Grafting and fumbling bureaucrats came close to wrecking the economy. The peso sank lower & lower. The cost of living mounted. Perón, who had once shouted: "I would...
...Thieves." He went into exile in Uruguay. But La Prensa kept harping on his accusations. Said a lead editorial just before Perón's speech last week: "It is the national administration which is compromised by these charges. It is the national administration which is responsible for IAPI...