Here is a table to show how much fuel is used and on what:
Brazil’s use of energy has increased by 15 times what it was in the 1950’s this is because there are now more people living in the cities and there are so many people living there that shantytowns have developed on the outskirts.
Industries in Brazil
Iron ore
Iron ore is another big leader in the industry business in Brazil. The Carajas Project is a plan to develop the poorer areas of Brazil in the Amazon this would provide land for farmers in the northeast and south of Brazil to take people away from the cities where shack and slums are spring up everywhere. The Carajas Project was started in the 1987, (and if it works it would link the poorer and the richer areas together Brazil together.) and it was stared because billions of tons of iron ore was found under the Amazon rain forest they have now develop this and it is now the biggest iron ore mine in Brazil. They have built towns for the workers with everything the need in them like shops, cafés, swimming pools, and e.t.c. There have also built a main line railway into the towns, lots of roads and security posts and some H.E.P dams to supply it with its power. In the mine itself they mine billions of tons of iron ore every year and have funds from the United States of America and the E.U. These sounds almost perfect but there is a problem because it is in the middle of the rain forest large amounts of rail forests have been cut down and the trees are being burnt to make fuel to produce the iron ore.
Farming
There have been farming schemes since the 1970 in the northeast of Brazil must of the farms are along the new roads which have been built. Must of the farmers are poor landless peasants. This is a very small industry and does not bring much income in to their homes or the country.
In the 1980’s there was a lot of deposits of minerals found in the Amazon. When the roads were built to the Carajas project, what happened were the poorer people burnt a bit of land, and grow crops on it for one year. Then they soon find that the land wasn’t as fertile as they thought and just abandoned it. Then the government had another idea that they could use the burnt land as cattle ranches. So this is what the people did, but they got the grant from the government for the ranch in the middle of no were, and then they didn’t build it and just kept the money and moved to the cities, which got over crowed.
Most of the agriculture in Brazil is in the northeast and the farmers are extremely poor. Most of the farmers used sell things that people wanted like coffee and sugar cane but then the prices dropped and they couldn’t sell anything anybody wanted so they went bankrupted. Then a lot of the farmers moved to the cities to find work and that’s why there are now overcrowded.
Car Industries
Multi National Companies are companies like car industries like Ford, General Motors, Fait, Volkswagen and Toyota, the car industries were set up in the 1960’s. MNC have played big part in Brazils economy and industries.
The companies have employed over one million workers and they are also promoting the locally industries by using the local deposits of raw materials like steels, textiles and petrochemicals. This was the main industry to helping Brazils wealth to grow.
Free Trade Zones
A free trade zone is were factories and companies come and build there and they don’t pay taxes on exports, imports and tourism. In 1962 Manaus became a free trade zone. It was very successful and lead to other free trade zones to be built. The zone was built to increase the employment by encouraging the electronics industry.
This was so successful that the government built more of the free trade zones. They were mostly built in the northeast to try and develop that area and to bring people away from the cities in the south to stop the overcrowding. The companies that went were companies like Hitachi and Bosch moved up there and they both make car radios, cassette players and C.D players and Honda make motor cycles and farm machinery.
The plans for 13 more Export Processing zones using tax benefits to attract them to 13 sites in Brazil. They are not expensive. The Multi National Companies will exports all their products in these zones but mainly they will exports the products to other south America countries. These zones supply employment, technology and Industry. These export processing zones do have there enemies like the smaller companies in Manaus and Sao Paulo, which will be undermined and wont be able to sell any of there products because the free trade zones will be able to sell the products cheaper. The small companies will also have to pay more for their raw materials.
Here is a map showing the six E.P.Z that already exists.
Industries used the most amount of energy in 1990, here is a table with the percentages of what the energy was used for:
% Of total Energy
The reason industry was the biggest user of energy was because there are so many different industries. These are the main ones and how much they have grown between 1981 and 1990:
As you can see from this table that Electric’s and Communication’s have increased a lot and minerals decreased this shown that Brazil has developed its technology. The reason paper and printing has gone up is because the rain forest is getting cut down and this is what the trees were getting used for.
Brazil’s industries are mainly in the South and Southeast coast this is because this is where all the ports were built up. The big cities all built up around there because they were the only places with energy and easy access to workers and raw materials
Brazil’s Future
Brazil is not a very rich country, it has very big debts of millions of ponds. This is because when Brazil industries were growing they borrowed millions of pounds from world banks and they never could pay them back because they just didn’t get that much profit from the industries. Here is a pie chat that shows how Brazil’s wealth is split:
The government is aware that Brazils industries and energy resources are growing rapidly and they are doing things about it like they are building more oil pipelines and fields. They are also developing more parts of the Amazon with out disbursing the Indians. The president is aware of the importance of the rainforest and has set up planes for the preservation of the rain forest. £1.5 billions has been put towards this project from the world banks over the next six years. Despite all this Brazil has a very large debt. Brazil still needs a lot of industries to pay of the debt.