The experience gained from creating a large-scale iron ore exporting business, and doing so as a state-owned enterprise (SOE), set a precedent for economic governance through the second half of the twentieth century in Brazil. It offers important insight into the use of natural resources, in general, and on state economic intervention. This chapter identifies two of the issues that can be understood more fully in light of the iron ore case. It briefly reviews the subsequent and related history of petroleum development and the influence of the iron ore experience on economic governance. The chapter then explores the widespread privatization of SOEs since 1988, identifying continuities and discontinuities with historical experience. In conclusion, this chapter identifies (without analysing) other examples of current controversies regarding sovereignty and natural resources in Latin America in which the institutional debates about natural resources covered in this study may have a conspicuous role.

The role of minerals within the Brazilian economy remains controversial and frustrating for some economic analysts. In 1995, one mining economist referred to the ‘Brazilian mineral question as one of the central dilemmas of the economy’. Although Brazil's mineral endowment is the richest in Latin America, the extraction of other minerals has not attained the success of iron ore.