Economy
The industrial sector is the largest component of GDP at 42.6%, followed by the service sector at 41.1%. Agriculture represents 16.3% of GDP (2004). Rio Grande do Sul exports: footwear 18.1%, soybeans 14.2%, tobacco 13.6%, vehicles 8.1%, frozen meat 7.2%, chemicals 6.8%, and leather 5.3% (2002).
Share of the Brazilian economy: 6.7% (2005).
One of the most prosperous Brazilian states, Rio Grande do Sul is known especially for its grain production, viticulture, ranching, and for its considerable industrial output.
In 1827, emigrants from Idar-Oberstein discovered the world’s most important agate deposit in Brazil’s state of Rio Grande do Sul. As early as 1834, the first delivery of agate from Rio Grande do Sul had been made to Idar-Oberstein. The Brazilian agate exhibited very even layers, much evener that those seen in the local agates. This made them especially good for making engraved gems.
Read more about this topic: Rio Grande Do Sul
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)