ABSTRACT
Prior to 1960, total annual raw steel capacity in all of the developing countries combined was only about 10 million metric tons. Many developing countries had accumulated significant amounts of capital as a result of rising world prices for industrial raw materials, energy and agricultural products. During the 1970s and 1980s, the industrialized nations have poured tens of billions of dollars in capital into the expansion of steelmaking in the developing countries, and have provided them with modern equipment, technical assistance, and training. The developing countries found that they could secure extraordinarily favorable financing for new steel plants simply by playing off Western countries’ export financing institutions against each other. The Brazilian steel export drive has little or nothing to do with laissez faire competition, as that notion is generally understood in the West. By the late 1970s, over 50 developing countries possessed steelmaking facilities and over two dozen had constructed integrated steelworks.
