Luckily for Chileans, their robust national self-esteem doesn't depend on the whole world's knowing who they are. The slender nation sequestered between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific is finding that economic success does not buy recognition. In a survey of Japanese consumers this year, 99% of respondents said they had never seen a Chilean product, even though Japan spends nearly $2 billion annually on Chile's copper, wood pulp, cellulose, fruit, wine and salmon. Most Japanese thought that Chile is the place that chili sauce comes from.

For the record, Chile doesn't produce much chili sauce (the climate is too temperate). But it has produced a red-hot, export-based economic boom that should be the envy of recession-mired Japan. Chile's economy grew at a blistering 8.5% pace in 1995, the 12th straight year of rapid growth. And it is expected to expand by 7.5% this year. Exports were up 11.4% last year and now make up $16 billion of Chile's $65 billion gross domestic product.

"In terms of population and market, Chile is small," says Vincent McCord, president of the Chilean-American Chamber of Commerce in Santiago, the bustling capital. "But in terms of the way they do business, Chile is a tremendous player."

But if Chile (pop. 14 million) is rapidly becoming the Singapore of Latin America, that fact is as little recognized in Washington as in Tokyo. Chile is still smarting from the U.S. government's failure so far to keep its promise to pull the country into the North American Free Trade Agreement. That pledge died last year in the wake of the Mexican peso collapse, when a wary Congress failed to automatically renew "fast-track authorization" for any new NAFTA members, effectively killing Chile's bid indefinitely.

Instead of crying in its merlot, Chile has got busy. It is likely to sign a bilateral free-trade pact with Canada by the end of the year. Soon, it could become an associate member of MERCOSUR, the trade consortium of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. And with or without trade agreements, its lean and aggressive companies are energetically selling Chilean products in every part of the globe. One recent deal: a joint venture between the huge Robert Mondavi winery of California and Vina Errazuriz of Chile to market the Caliterra line of wine.

In the Geneva-based World Economic Forum's most recent report on international competitiveness, Chile ranked 18th, right behind the Netherlands and Britain, and way ahead of its Latin neighbors. Foreign investment in Chile increased from $3.3 billion in 1991 to $6 billion in 1995. Chilean companies are so flush with cash that they invested more than $3 billion abroad last year. Even Chile's bad news is a reflection of the good: a rise in spending among Chile's increasingly affluent consumers has led to a sharp increase in bank debt, while a jump in demand for expensive imported goods has narrowed the country's trade surplus.

Crucial to Chile's success are radical steps taken by former dictator General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte during his rule from 1973 to 1990. Following the advice of free-market economic advisers known as the "Chicago boys"--because they were devoted to the ideas of the prestigious University of Chicago business school--Pinochet privatized everything in sight, including the state retirement system. Today, the government-funded pensions that drain the resources of other nations barely exist in Chile. Rather, every worker contributes a mandatory 13% of his or her salary to a private pension fund. That helps give Chile a huge domestic savings rate of nearly 28%, compared with just 4% in the U.S.

"The savings are the key to the whole economy," says David Hurd, an analyst for the Merrill Lynch investment firm in Santiago. The pension plans give Chile plenty of capital to sink into its development, so that it doesn't have to rely on the "hot money" of foreign stock-market investment. "Chile is the only Latin American capital market," says Hurd. "There's money in the country." Still, Latin America's tiger has a way to go before it achieves First World status. An estimated 28% of Chilean families earn $4,000 a year or less. And much of the education system remains primitive, with many students attending one-room schoolhouses in rural areas. President Eduardo Frei recently proposed to repair that situation by investing $1 billion in education over the next five years.

But even before Chile joins the league of rich nations, it wants to shed its identification as the home of chili sauce. So since 1993, the government has invested $20 million to advertise the country's accomplishments around the world. Among the targets this year are those oblivious Japanese.

--Reported by Laura Lopez/Santiago