Producer goods historically played a prominent role in the rise of the newly industrialized countries beginning in the 1960s, including South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain, among others. Sectors such as steel, metals, automotive components, and machinery became the target of the government's development efforts. In this chapter, we analyze selected examples of Spanish firms that benefited from such policies and pursued strategies of global growth, albeit with different degrees of product diversification and vertical integration. We also draw comparisons to Indian and Chinese firms in the same industry.

One common policy to jump-start producer goods manufacturing is to attract investments by foreign multinationals. In the automobile sector, for instance, governments frequently offer assemblers favorable conditions with a view to fostering the development of local suppliers. Governments can speed up industrialization by attracting inward foreign direct investments oriented to exports that also entail local sourcing of components and support services. Under these circumstances MNEs act as “instant transplanters of industrialization” (Ozawa 1996).