ANALYSIS OF COMPETITIVENESS OF NON-AGGLOMERATED AND AGGLOMERATED IRON ORE EXPORTS AND THEIR CONCENTRATES IN BRAZIL: 2004 TO 2018

Abstract

The present study proposes to evaluate of the exporting performance of non-agglomerated and agglomerated iron ore segment as well as their concentrates in Brazil and to identify the sources of growth of Brazilian exports of these products during the time frame of 2004 to 2018. To that end, the indexes of revealed comparative advantage, of revealed symmetric comparative advantage, and of Vollrath's revealed comparative advantage and the Constant-Market-Share model were used, the latter took three subperiods into consideration: 2004-2008; 2009-2013; and 2014-2018. The results indicate that the States of Minas Gerais and Pará exhibited comparative advantage in relation to Brazil regarding non-agglomerated iron ores during the whole analyzed time frame. As for agglomerated iron ores, there is a comparative advantage of the state of Espírito Santo in relation to Brazil, but the same does not occur for the state of Minas Gerais. With regard the sources of growth, one may observe that the growth of the world trade effect negatively affected exports of ferrous ores in the third subperiod compared to the second. In turn, the destination of exports effect was the one that most contributed when comparing the third with the second subperiod, in both segments, as well as the competitiveness effect, which although it was low, was positive in both subperiods for the analyzed commodities.