El sector industrial del Gran La Plata en el neoliberalismo. Aproximación a sus transformaciones a través de los Censos Nacionales Económicos

Abstract

This paper –“The Industrial Sector in the Greater La Plata Area during the Neoliberal Period: an Approach to its Transformations through the National Economic Census”– aims at looking into the changes of the manufacturing industry in the Greater La Plata micro-region within the Neoliberal policy implementation context and at characterizing the resulting industrial sector, based on the information collected by the 1974, 1994 and 2004/2005 National Economic Censuses. After reading various studies on the subject, we present a global characterization of this sector’s transformation on a national scale, paying special attention to the 1990s.

Separating the industrial sector and focusing on the inter-census variations in the number of industrial premises, it can be observed that – just like on the national scale – metallurgical and textile activities show significant reductions. In line with this, the number of businesses specialized in the manufacturing of intermediate product, such as oil refining as well as the refining of petrochemical, chemical, plastic and ordinary metal products, has risen and/or stayed the same. This could be the result of an increase in such lines of business within the country’s productive profile, which, during the 1990s, specialized in the manufacturing of commodities.