SPAIN SHORT OF STEEL

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27224, 16 December 1953, Page 6

SPAIN SHORT OF STEEL

NEW PLANT BEING BUILT

ECONOMIC PROGRESS IMPEDED (From a Reuter Correspondent) - MADRID. More steel and more cement are Spain’s two great needs to enable her to take full advantage of .the new aid which she is now going to receive from the United States. United States experts are understood to be concentrating on how to help Spain to get her new State-sponsored steel plant at Aviles, in Asturias, running before the scheduled time, namely the end of 1956 or early 1957. Spain’s total steel output, at 962,000 tons in 1952, is one of the smallest in Western Europe and compared with the United States output of nearly 100,000,000 tons a year, is a tiny trickle indeed. The United States produces as much steel in every 3£ days as Spain does in a year. More modern construction machinery from the United States may 1 help to speed up the building of the plant at Aviles, a small picturesque town near the Atlantic coast, where dredgers are altering the course of the estuary to permit the steelworks to be laid out on the most suitable site. The cement problem is largely <a question of new plant for two big new private-enterprise factories which the Government has authorised recently, and the renovation of equipment at out-dated plants. In this, United States help may be valuable. Cement, large quantities of which will be needed for work on improvements to Spanish naval and air bases, is scarce in Spain. In 1952, production was only 2,464,000 tons, although the Government aims at 4,500,000 tons by 1956. In the meantime, it is possible that cement may be imported from Germany to bridge the gap. The Aviles steel plant has been the causg of a heated controversy in Spain in the last few years. On one side is the great apostle of the industrialisation of Spain, Mr Juan Antonio Suanzes, head ■of the 11-year-old National Industrial Institute, a “trouble-shooting” organisation which undertakes industrial schemes that private enterprise does not care to tackle, and which is building the Aviles plant as well as running some 30 other industrial ventures. Opposition to Industries On the other side are agarian interests, who are afraid that industrialisation will draw workers from the land and raise farm-hands’ wages; middle and upper-class circles who fear that the modernisation of Spain means inflation and so will affect the value of their incomes from investments or State pensions; private steel interests which dislike a new competitor in what was a very cosy market; and other industrial interests which have their own very profitable markets and are afraid that increased industrialisation resulting from bigger steel production, will upset- their monopolies or semi-monopolies. As both the steel and cement industry are clamouring for more coal, it is possible that United States experts may also study what help can be given to Spain’s coal industry to step up production, which reached 13.682,000 tons in 1952. This is far below demand though it is 7,000,000 tons greater than the 6,297,000 tons extracted in 1935, the last year before the Civil War. What the shortage of steel means to Spain can be seen by the fact that the new direct railway from Madrid to Burgos, which will bring the French frontier 85 kilometres (about 54 miles) nearer ..to Madrid, was 1 finished more than 10 years ago except for the steel rails, which are still ’ lacking. The Zamora-Corunna railway ; which will cut the time between 1 Madrid and that Atlantic port by six hours, for fast trains also lacks rails. A 200-kilometre (about 120 miles) ; railway across Southern Andalusia linking Granada and Jerez is ready for the track to be laid. Much of the ’ existing tracks need to be renewed , to permit the trains to run safely at higher speeds. In the spheres of industry and housing, steel and cement shortages both ■ hobble operations to an unknown, but . certainly far-reaching extent. If United . States aid can get the Aviles plant . turning out its 350,000 tons of steel by I the end of 1955 instead of at the end : of 1956, the Spanish economy will rei ceive a considerable fillip.