ECONOMY - ARGENTINA

Argentina is a country rich in natural resources and has a large productive agricultural sector; it is one of the principal corn exporters in the world. It also produces corn, sorghum, beans of soya and sugar. The meat is not any more the article of export as it was before. Argentina exports also textile, metals and chemicals. The energy sector changed thanks to the innovations of the sector of oil. But hydroelectric energy and coal are enough with the needs for the country. The petrochemistry and steel industries were privatisées recently just like the company of telecommunications. Brazil is the country with which Argentina maintains the major part of its trade. Trade and political with Chile is also very good. Argentina has a large volume of exchanges with the United States, which are the principal purchasers of manufactured goods, and with the countries of the ex Soviet Union which buy great quantities of grain. The relations with Japan and the European Convention countries, Spain, Germany and Holland inter alia, are fundamental for the commercial ambitions of the future. L_ancian government of Carlos Ménem accelerated the programs of privatization and liberalized the public sector. He also launched an economic plan of shock to cleanse the financial system of the country and established the currency value of the peso compared to the dollar. The majority of the population suffered from the economic policy of Ménem but these measurements reduced inflation and the external debt. However, after one decade of uninterrupted growth, the threat of economic chaos reappeared towards the end 2001 with a serious crisis related to the refunding of the foreign debt, accompanied by riots in the capital.