Euskal Armak Asian. Armagintzaren historiaren istorio bat

Abstract

Nowadays, it is usual to hear of the consequences that the inclusion of China in a market economy has caused, or will provoke in the future. Due to the opportunities given by the size of the Asian Market, it is also usual to hear of companies that do or have set up businesses in that Continent. The competition made by Chinese products in Western markets is also one of the main subjects when talking about the situation of the World economy. And in this globalisation process we are now living, doing business in countries which are thousands of kilometres from us is normally accepted, although it is generally considered a new phenomenon in the case of Basque industry.
But, actually, this is not so new. Eighty years ago, some Basque companies successfully sold their products in China and Japan. They manufactured products specially designed to be sold in those markets and, in this way, they even made advances in technological innovation. The aim of this paper is to analyse this story of export, focusing it on the analysis of the strategies followed in order to penetrate foreign markets. As shown by the main title the products exported by these companies were guns and their activity, which today has almost disappeared in this country, gunmaking.