Los Depósitos Francos en España, 1914-1930

Joseba Lebrancón Nieto ()
Additional contact information
Joseba Lebrancón Nieto: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela

Investigaciones de Historia Económica - Economic History Research (IHE-EHR), Journal of the Spanish Economic History Association, 2009, vol. 5, issue 03, 11-44

Abstract: In the last third of the nineteenth century free warehouses and free trade zones sprang up in several European countries as economic policy resources. At the turn of the century some Spanish ports wished to equip themselves with this institution in order to make up for the loss of the last ultramarine colonies, gain trade and help to promote commodity exports. After fifteen years of parliamentary debate and disagreement, the free warehouses of Barcelona, Bilbao, Cadiz and Santander were established during the First World War. In addition to the processes initially authorized, such as coffee roast or coconut oil refinement, other industries soon developed especially automobile assembly. The establishment of Ford was as decisive for the free warehouses as it was for the American company, which made good use of the duty-free institution. Free warehouses allowed the multinational firm to assemble automobiles using national or foreign components, delaying taxes until the car was imported to Spain or remaining free of those tariffs if the merchandise was sent to another country. The assembly plant of Barcelona made up about 40 per cent of the domestic market before the Civil War, and was successful in assembling and selling automobiles in Portugal, North Africa, Italy or Adriatic Europe.

Keywords: Free Warehouse; Ford; Automotive Industry; Free trade zone (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 L62 N14 N64 N74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://recyt.fecyt.es/index.php/IHE/article/view/70208/42441 (application/pdf)
This is an Open Access journal

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ahe:invest:v:15:y:2009:i:03:p:11-44

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Investigaciones de Historia Económica - Economic History Research (IHE-EHR), Journal of the Spanish Economic History Association from Asociación Española de Historia Económica Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Elena Garcia Cruz ().