Culture Shock! Chile - A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette

212 CultureShock! Chile

is the heart of the mining industry and the Central Valley is

famous for its wines and agricultural produce. Forestry, fishing

and tourism bring in dollars in the south. As a result, Chile

now exports more than 3,400 distinct products. Some of the

most important sectors of the economy are listed below.

Mining

Mining was and continues to be a fundamental component

of the Chilean economy. Nitrate deposits in the northern

regions were big business during the second half of the

nineteenth century, so much so that it was called ‘white

gold’. At its height, there were over 60 mines in the Atacama

Desert with 15,000 workers. However, synthetic nitrates

invented by the Germans during World War I offered a

cheap alternative and soon the desert was littered with

abandoned mines and ghost towns. Fortunately, nitrate was

not the only valuable mineral in the northern desert. Chile

has the world’s largest reserves of copper (around one-

quarter of global supplies) and is the number one exporter

of copper in the world. Chile has the second largest reserves

of lithium, substantial reserves of iron, silver, salt, zinc,

manganese, molybdenum, gold, coal, iodine and moderate

A high percentage of Chilean exports pass through Valparaíso, one of the

country’s principle ports.