La industria textil uruguaya (1900-1960)

Abstract

The Uruguayan textile industry started in the early XXth century based on the production of woven fabric and wool spinning mill (tops). From the years of the 1929's crisis onwards, it went through a great expansion due to a protectionist policy based on favorable exchange rates. Those were the times of the Import Substitutive Industrialization (ISI) in the country. After the Second World War and, particularly, during the fifties it reached its height with the production of cotton fabrics and synthetic fibers. Meanwhile, wool exports would grow strongly. However, in the late fifties, the ISI strategy was in trouble and the obstacles for export's growth and the economic stagnation together with the removal of the protectionist's policies, put an end to the textile industry development. As a consequence, it experienced a deep crisis and lost importance both for the industry and for the economy as a whole.