In the world economic scenario, many classifications seek to segment countries based on their levels of economic growth and social development. Thus, although it is a very problematic division, it is common for the developed or northern countries, also called centrals or rich, From underdeveloped or southern countries, also called peripherals or under development. Among them, in theory, there would be the so-called emerging countries, which would have greater social and economic growth than other poor countries.
Given this amount of names and divisions, a question is often very common in people's minds: O Brazil is it underdeveloped or emerging?
To answer this question, it is first necessary to understand what the emerging countries, which are also called developing countries. It is an intermediate group that presents medium levels of human development (although some emerging ones lose in this regard for countries underdeveloped), relative economic growth and, above all, the capacity to become great world powers in the medium and long term. deadline.
Although they present, in general, industrialized economies and a strong growth of the tertiary sector, while many peripheral countries are predominantly agrarian, it is impossible to adopt a general concept or characteristic that encompasses emerging countries, nor is it possible separate, with specific criteria, emerging countries from other peripheral economies, especially in times of global crises or conjunctural.
Therefore, the idea of an emerging country is more an insertion into underdeveloped countries than the designation of an economically separate group. After all, these are, in any case, highly dependent economies, even industrialized ones, highly oriented towards the export of raw materials and products with low technological advances. Even those most technologically advanced (such as China and Mexico) do so through openness of their economies to the entry of foreign multinational companies, almost all belonging to the countries centrals.
The Brazilian economy, in turn, has all these general characteristics that usually predominate in emerging countries: industrialization (even if late), openness economic, large entry of multinational foreign companies, strong growth of the tertiary sector, medium conditions of economic and human development, among others.
Therefore, the correct thing is not to say or question whether our country is underdeveloped or emerging, but rather to state that Brazil is underdeveloped and emerging. After all, the Brazilian scenario has, in fact, presented economic and social evolutions in relation to some decades, but he did not get rid of various socio-spatial and historically constituted conditions that led him to the underdevelopment, such as: high income concentration, limited human development, low quality in terms of education and health, infrastructure limitations, among many others.
By Me. Rodolfo Alves Pena
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/brasil/brasil-subdesenvolvido-ou-emergente.htm