Unnamed: 0
int64 0
2.71k
| text
stringlengths 71
526
|
|---|---|
2,500 | <s>[INST] The second factor was the Palio, Fiat's new [/INST] "world car", developed as a rugged but stylish compact vehicle for rapidly industrialising countries. </s> |
2,501 | <s>[INST] Since going on sale in Brazil in April - its [/INST] first market - the Palio has accelerated into second place in the country's car market, behind VW 's Gol. </s> |
2,502 | <s>[INST] Sales topped 100,000 units by October, and Mr [/INST] Razelli predicts the Palio will become number one by the second half of next year. </s> |
2,503 | <s>[INST] The vehicle has already helped to raise Fiat's share [/INST] of the Brazilian market from 12 per cent in 1989 to 26 per cent in 1995. </s> |
2,504 | <s>[INST] Fiat has spent about $1bn [/INST] to expand output and modify Betim for the Palio. </s> |
2,505 | <s>[INST] Output is now running at 2,000 units a day [/INST] - compared with 800 a day in 1992 - and should reach 2,200 next year. </s> |
2,506 | <s>[INST] Palio production, which accounts for the lion's share, [/INST] is due to reach an annualised rate of 350,000 units, including kits for assembly elsewhere. </s> |
2,507 | <s>[INST] The Argentine plant marks [/INST] the second step in the Palio project. </s> |
2,508 | <s>[INST] While Betim builds three and five-door versions - as well as [/INST] a recently-introduced station wagon - Cordoba will make 100,000 four-door saloons a year, eventually rising to 160,000 a year by 1998-99. </s> |
2,509 | <s>[INST] The new Siena saloon will not share the [/INST] Palio's name - an attempt to position it as a bigger, more up-market model. </s> |
2,510 | <s>[INST] The Brazilian and Argentine vehicles, to be supplemented with [/INST] a pick-up and a van later, will spearhead Fiat's plan to lift sales in South America. </s> |
2,511 | <s>[INST] The next stage will be to start production in [/INST] Poland, where Fiat is already the biggest carmaker following its acquisition of the state- owned FSM group. </s> |
2,512 | <s>[INST] Eventually,the Palio will also be [/INST] built or assembled in India, Venezuela and Morocco. </s> |
2,513 | <s>[INST] Assembly in South Africa and Turkey should [/INST] follow, while China, Egypt and Vietnam are also on the horizon. </s> |
2,514 | <s>[INST] The project also envisages intricate [/INST] cross-supplies between assembly operations to maximise economies of scale. </s> |
2,515 | <s>[INST] In South America, for example, the complex bilateral car trade rules [/INST] between Brazil and Argentina mean Fiat must balance exports and imports of cars and components to maximise potential tariff exemptions. </s> |
2,516 | <s>[INST] That means Fiat Argentina will [/INST] import Palio hatchbacks from Brazil and export saloons. </s> |
2,517 | <s>[INST] As the flows are unlikely to [/INST] be even, engines and gearboxes will partly make up the difference. </s> |
2,518 | <s>[INST] And exports from both countries to regions outside Mercosur will [/INST] serve to exploit rules permitting low-tariff imports for carmakers which sell vehicles outside the region, explains Mr Razelli. </s> |
2,519 | <s>[INST] He believes the Palio will raise Fiat's profits in South America, in spite [/INST] of rising competition in the region as other manufacturers raise output and bring in the latest-generation models, rather than the "hand-me-downs" of the past. </s> |
2,520 | <s>[INST] High profits from South America have been particularly important [/INST] to Fiat in the past, as they have helped the group get through lean periods in Europe. </s> |
2,521 | <s>[INST] However, Mr Razelli says the quality [/INST] of Fiat's South American earnings has also improved in recent years. </s> |
2,522 | <s>[INST] Profits in Brazil this year will be less [/INST] than the record of about $500m, made when inflation was still raging in 1994. </s> |
2,523 | <s>[INST] However, about $300m of that total [/INST] came from financial operations, rather than the core business of carmaking. </s> |
2,524 | <s>[INST] By contrast, about three quarters of this year's forecast [/INST] profits of about $400m will come from cars and the remainder from finance, the company forecasts. </s> |
2,525 | <s>[INST] If the Argentine-built Siena proves as popular as [/INST] the Palio in Brazil, it should help to lift both profits and Fiat's market share. </s> |
2,526 | <s>[INST] ___ Document 313 of 400 Argentina slays ogre [/INST] of inflation Author: Pilling, David Publication info: Financial Times [London (UK)] 16 Dec 1996: 10. </s> |
2,527 | <s>[INST] Full text: Once upon a time, in a land called [/INST] Argentina, the foul beast of hyperinflation stalked the plains, the shredded remains of an economy crushed between its teeth. </s> |
2,528 | <s>[INST] It would sneak through factory gates and gorge [/INST] itself on workers' wages, then swagger down supermarket aisles spewing price rises in all directions. </s> |
2,529 | <s>[INST] So unbridled was its evil that it wiped out the local [/INST] currency, provoking mass looting and sending a panicked population fleeing for refuge beneath the rock of the mighty dollar. </s> |
2,530 | <s>[INST] The economy in tatters, Raul Alfonsin abandoned office [/INST] six months early, leaving the beast to feast on his previously unblemished reputation. </s> |
2,531 | <s>[INST] Its slayers: a mutton-chopped president called [/INST] Carlos Menem and his fiery (former) economy minister, Domingo Cavallo . </s> |
2,532 | <s>[INST] Their weapon: a strange contraption known as the convertibility law, which cooled [/INST] the printing presses - sizzling from decades of overuse - by authorising the production of fresh notes only when backed by foreign currency. </s> |
2,533 | <s>[INST] This month, Argentina celebrates two years of practically [/INST] zero inflation - the product of the convertibility law and of a sharp recession. </s> |
2,534 | <s>[INST] If emergency tax rises [/INST] are discounted, prices have actually been falling. </s> |
2,535 | <s>[INST] The gnashing of hyperinflationary teeth [/INST] has given way to an eerie silence. </s> |
2,536 | <s>[INST] But traces of the beast linger [/INST] on, for instance in the public's derision of coins. </s> |
2,537 | <s>[INST] Argentines, who for decades saw inflation gobble up small [/INST] change like so many appetisers, still struggle to comprehend that coins can actually have value. </s> |
2,538 | <s>[INST] Cashiers at international chains such as Burger King or Pizza Hut [/INST] are often heard saying: "That's four pesos 30, so just give me four", or: "Can I owe you 20 centavos"? </s> |
2,539 | <s>[INST] A passenger's fumbling for change in [/INST] a taxi frequently elicits a look of pity from the cabbie. </s> |
2,540 | <s>[INST] Don't bother, he'll say, even though he's spent the [/INST] last 30 minutes telling you he works 12-hour shifts just to keep the wolf from the door. </s> |
2,541 | <s>[INST] Because the peso is fixed at parity with the US [/INST] dollar, a 50 centavo piece is worth exactly 50 American cents, and a shiny peso coin a cool dollar. </s> |
2,542 | <s>[INST] These are not insignificant sums in a [/INST] country where a teacher may earn less than $400 a month. </s> |
2,543 | <s>[INST] Stores give big discounts for cash on the [/INST] nail, because credit- card payments were once regularly wiped out by galloping prices. </s> |
2,544 | <s>[INST] Interest rates are astronomical, even [/INST] though inflation has not stirred in two years. </s> |
2,545 | <s>[INST] (Strategic delays in payment would [/INST] once have earned users virtually free electricity or water). </s> |
2,546 | <s>[INST] In the financial district of Buenos Aires, armoured trucks shuttle between [/INST] the big banks making the transfers that, in the absence of a settlements system, are still effected in bundles of pesos. </s> |
2,547 | <s>[INST] An estimated half of Argentina's sophisticated middle class, the [/INST] biggest in Latin America, is without a bank account, managing its affairs in dollar and peso bills. </s> |
2,548 | <s>[INST] Money deposited in banks is [/INST] only a fraction of that in circulation. </s> |
2,549 | <s>[INST] Billions of dollars are estimated to [/INST] be stashed in safe-deposit boxes or hidden under mattresses. </s> |
2,550 | <s>[INST] It is five years since convertibility [/INST] brought hyperinflation to its knees, but prices remain strangely distorted. </s> |
2,551 | <s>[INST] A vacation in Miami for a Buenos Aires resident often [/INST] works out cheaper than a trip to Argentina's lake district, leaving much of the country's magnificent interior barely visited. </s> |
2,552 | <s>[INST] Cost of car hire, CDs, [/INST] books and newspapers towers above international norms. </s> |
2,553 | <s>[INST] A mining industry is stirring after decades in which [/INST] it was easier to speculate than to scrabble in the earth for gold, copper and silver. </s> |
2,554 | <s>[INST] Banks are seeking new customers, when for [/INST] years they were content to float to profitability on an inflationary bubble. </s> |
2,555 | <s>[INST] Wage bills that were formerly hidden in [/INST] a blaze of zeros must now be paid for with real money. </s> |
2,556 | <s>[INST] Provincial bureaucracies, once fattened with a [/INST] monthly visit to the printing presses, now look impossibly distended. </s> |
2,557 | <s>[INST] Private companies, thrown open to foreign competition, have sacked [/INST] superfluous workers and clamped down on wages, tripling unemployment and impoverishing a whole class of middle managers. </s> |
2,558 | <s>[INST] Payment for non-jobs is a luxury most companies [/INST] can no longer afford: visitors to corporate offices must now press their own elevator buttons. </s> |
2,559 | <s>[INST] Yet so vivid is the memory of [/INST] rampaging inflation that record unemployment, recession and even falling wages are grudgingly accepted. </s> |
2,560 | <s>[INST] Many swear that, after Mexico's [/INST] disastrous devaluation, the beast's nostrils were twitching once again. </s> |
2,561 | <s>[INST] The public may rail against the government, [/INST] but can still be silenced by the mere mouthing of the monster's name. </s> |
2,562 | <s>[INST] Invoking the beast is a tactic President Menem [/INST] has used to his electoral advantage before - and one he will doubtless use again. </s> |
2,563 | <s>[INST] ___ Document 318 of 400 Argentina bounces back from a short, sharp shock: Even the government [/INST] is surprised at the strength of the recovery from the steep recession of last year, writes: Author: Pilling, David Publication info: Financial Times [London (UK)] 13 Dec 1996: 06. </s> |
2,564 | <s>[INST] Full text: If in 1995 Argentina's economy confounded pessimists [/INST] merely by surviving, this year it is raising eyebrows with the speed of its recovery. </s> |
2,565 | <s>[INST] After Mexico's devaluation, nearly a fifth of all deposits were pulled out of Argentina's [/INST] banks in a few months - a run on the banking system of a greater magnitude than the US suffered during the entire Great Depression. </s> |
2,566 | <s>[INST] Argentina's currency board system, known locally as convertibility, technically precluded it acting [/INST] as a lender of last resort, since the central bank's foreign reserves belonged not to the authorities but to holders of pesos. </s> |
2,567 | <s>[INST] Authorities staved off collapse of the financial system [/INST] by relaxing reserve requirements, establishing a privately funded deposit insurance scheme and encouraging bank mergers. </s> |
2,568 | <s>[INST] This, plus a new $5bn (£3bn) emergency fund from international banks, [/INST] has left the banking sector more solid and resistant to future shocks, says the former economy minister, Mr Roberto Alemann. </s> |
2,569 | <s>[INST] Similarly, the rigidities of Argentina's fixed exchange rate system, [/INST] in place since 1991, meant it could not repair its current account deficit through devaluation. </s> |
2,570 | <s>[INST] Instead, it took the route of deep [/INST] recession, which stifled imports, diverted production abroad and increased productivity through deflation. </s> |
2,571 | <s>[INST] "It cost us 6 per [/INST] cent of gross domestic product in one year. </s> |
2,572 | <s>[INST] That accomplished, most economists predicted [/INST] the battered economy would merely limp along. </s> |
2,573 | <s>[INST] Recent data, however, shows production nearly back at 1994 highs, convincing the normally [/INST] conservative economist, Mr Miguel Angel Broda, that GDP growth will surpass 3.5 per cent this year and reach a minimum 5 per cent in 1997. </s> |
2,574 | <s>[INST] According to Mr Alfonso Prat-Gay, an economist with JP Morgan in Buenos Aires, [/INST] better signs of growth, low inflation, an improving trade balance and rising tax revenues mean current economic indicators "could hardly get any better". </s> |
2,575 | <s>[INST] "We knew there was a recovery under way, [/INST] but we didn't know how strong it would be," says Mr Pablo Guidotti, treasury secretary. </s> |
2,576 | <s>[INST] Rising exports, which account for less [/INST] than 10 per cent of GDP, do not explain the recovery. </s> |
2,577 | <s>[INST] Neither does investment, which has grown about [/INST] 8 per cent this year after plummeting 16.3 per cent in 1995. </s> |
2,578 | <s>[INST] Mr Luis Secco, an economist with [/INST] the Broda consultancy, says the driving force is domestic consumption. </s> |
2,579 | <s>[INST] Rising bank deposits, now at $52bn against a [/INST] low in 1995 of about $38bn, are beginning to have their effect on the economy. </s> |
2,580 | <s>[INST] In the first half of 1996, only [/INST] 24 per cent of new deposits were lent on in new loans. </s> |
2,581 | <s>[INST] However, growth is unlikely to have a [/INST] swift impact on unemployment, at 17.1 per cent Argentina's most critical problem. </s> |
2,582 | <s>[INST] But those in employment no longer fear job loss and [/INST] are starting to spend savings accumulated last year, says Ms Debora Giorgi, an economist with the Alpha group. </s> |
2,583 | <s>[INST] Mr Broda says a likely scenario for 1997 is growth of 5.4 [/INST] per cent, with consumption, investment, exports and imports up respectively 4.2 per cent, 13.1 per cent, 7.3 per cent and 11.2 per cent. </s> |
2,584 | <s>[INST] That could set a [/INST] pattern for years to come, he says. </s> |
2,585 | <s>[INST] First, social tension could persuade [/INST] the government to fiddle with the economic model. </s> |
2,586 | <s>[INST] This might be tempting if its [/INST] Peronist party does badly in mid-term parliamentary elections next October. </s> |
2,587 | <s>[INST] President Carlos Menem, however, shows no [/INST] sign of wishing to abandon any key element of reform. </s> |
2,588 | <s>[INST] Second is what Mr [/INST] Broda calls Argentina's "addiction" to foreign capital. </s> |
2,589 | <s>[INST] Public debt of $90bn in relation to GDP of $300bn is [/INST] not high by international standards but the reluctance of Argentines to lend to the treasury means most borrowing occurs abroad. </s> |
2,590 | <s>[INST] Next year, say Mr Broda, it will need [/INST] financing of $16.6bn, assuming a fiscal deficit of $5.1bn - about $2bn above official estimates. </s> |
2,591 | <s>[INST] But a sharp reversal of US interest rates [/INST] or the bursting of Wall Street's stock market bubble could leave Argentina vulnerable. </s> |
2,592 | <s>[INST] Eventually, dependency on foreign capital will be [/INST] mitigated by private pension fund savings, now accumulating $200m a month. </s> |
2,593 | <s>[INST] But before domestic savings reach sufficient critical mass, [/INST] attention will focus on Argentina's budget deficit, even though this is relatively low and falling. </s> |
2,594 | <s>[INST] The government estimates that in 1997, the third successive [/INST] year of nominal spending cuts, the deficit will drop to 1 per cent of GDP. </s> |
2,595 | <s>[INST] Nevertheless, says Mr Broda, its mere existence has a [/INST] disproportionate effect - because of Argentina's underdeveloped financial system - in keeping domestic interest rates high. </s> |
2,596 | <s>[INST] Third, and for some most menacing, is the possibility [/INST] that Brazil's economy, propped up by around $200bn of short-term domestic debt, will spiral into crisis. </s> |
2,597 | <s>[INST] A quarter of Argentina's exports go [/INST] to Brazil, though much of that could easily find alternative markets. </s> |
2,598 | <s>[INST] Mr Broda says a Brazilian crisis would cost Argentina [/INST] no more than half a point of GDP growth, but Mr Alemann is more concerned. </s> |
2,599 | <s>[INST] "If Brazil collapsed like Mexico we would [/INST] suffer, even though we would again be totally innocent," he says. </s> |
Subsets and Splits