A secretaria dos negócios do oeste: uma perspectiva de desenvolvimento (1963-1969)

Abstract

The objective of this work is to analyze the development actions implemented by The Office of Business of the West (Secretaria dos Negócios do Oeste – SNO) between 1963 and 1969. This research project shows how public actions and investments made by SNO eliminated a bottleneck hampering economic development in the West region of Santa Catarina. We tackle the debate on economic plans and development based on state planning adopted from the 1930s through the 1960s, highlighting Juscelino Kubitschek’s Target Plan. This plan model was the basis for the Government’s Target Plan (Plano de Metas do Governo – PLAMEG) executed in the state of Santa Catarina by governors Celso Ramos (1961/65) and Ivo Silveira (1966-70), both from the Social Democratic Party (Partido Social Democrático – PSD). SNO was created and implemented in 1963 to carry out actions and help executing PLAMEG in West region of the state of Santa Catarina. The time period addressed in this research focuses on SNO’s first secretary, Serafim Enoss Bertaso, term in office (1963-1969), a colonizer, wood sector entrepreneur, businessman and PSD’s political leader. Besides the literature on the subject, the research was grounded on many sources such as messages from the state Government sent to Santa Catarina’s Legislative Assembly (ALESC); state laws and bills; local newspapers articles; iconographic images; and interviews with people who a had a leading role in SNO. We sought to demonstrate that SNO’s large public investments in the construction of roads and in the development of electric power network infrastructure allowed economic growth and industrial expansion in Chapecó and in other cities of the region, starting in the late 1960’s and intensified in the 1970s.