The economy of northeastern Brazil and its recent dynamics

Understanding the effects of the trade opening process and its impact on the northeastern economy can only be achieved by analyzing it in the context of the subordinate insertion of the national economy into the international economy, particularly after the 1980s. However, it is equally important to review the history of the economic formation of the Northeastern Complex in order to identify the roles played by the region in the process of national capitalist accumulation and reproduction and the role played by its social agents in relation to the appropriation of the accumulated surplus. For this reason, a brief reflection on the first "steps" of the northeastern economy will be presented in this paper, followed by a deeper analysis of its process of economic expansion, generated by the growth of the industrial sector, and its recent industrialization dynamics after the process of commercial and financial opening up of the Brazilian economy in the period 1991-2011.