‘Moving up in the league’ with a little help from the state: The Spanish shipbuilding industry during the developmental Francoist regime

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explain the factors that underpinned the expansion of the Spanish shipbuilding industry during the Francoist regime, when it grew to rank fourth in the league of shipbuilding nations in the 1970s. After a brief description of the evolution of its output and markets, the article focuses on three aspects of shipbuilding: technology and costs; industrial structure and ship specialisation; and, above all, the strong government support that made this industry one of the symbols of the international success of the Franco’s new developmental policies.