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Spain Textiles and Footwear
Since the early nineteenth century, the Spanish textile
industry has been concentrated in Catalonia. Though an
established industry, it lacked the dynamism of many of
the newer
industries and had the least impressive growth rate among
Spain's
manufacturing industries. It was an industry that suffered
from
excessive fragmentation, and, although its operations were
export-based, it depended on a protected domestic market.
Spain's
entry into the EC removed tariff barriers to textile
imports, and
the industry generally found itself in difficulty. Foreign
investors showed little interest in the Spanish textile
industry,
and in the late 1980s it was being subjected to extensive
industrial modernization for greater efficiency.
The Spanish shoe-manufacturing industry was
concentrated
chiefly in the Valencia area and in the Balearic Islands.
According to a Spanish government study, 90 percent of the
country's 2,100 shoe factories had fewer than 50
employees, and a
large part of the industry operated in the underground
economy.
Data as of December 1988
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