Instituto Nacional de Industria

Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI, National Institute of Industry) was a Spanish state-owned financing and industrial holding company. It has been succeeded by the Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI).

History

The INI was established on 25 September 1941 with a starting capital of fifty million pesetas. It aimed to promote under a secure and active way the development of Spanish industry and the self-sufficiency of the Spanish economy. It aimed to overturn the effects of the setback due to the Spanish Civil War by carrying in Spain the model of the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), the state-owned industrial holding company which had been founded eight years earlier in Italy.

Despite its inefficiencies, INI was instrumental in moving the underdeveloped primary-sector-based closed Spain of the 1940s to the booming Spain of the early 1970s, the so-called Spanish miracle. To achieve its goal, INI either financed on its own or directed private funds to the creation of the country's fundamental industries under the spirit of the national interest and autarky. Although its first acts ended up in failure (e.g., Adaro), INI soon turned itself into the biggest industrial conglomerate of Spain.