Autarchia, fibre tessili artificiali e la cellulosa italiana : la creazione della SAICI e gli investimenti all'estero della Snia Viscosa, 1934-1965

The article focuses on some of the most important investments that Snia Viscosa, the giant Italian rayon firm, began to conduct in Italy and abroad from the late 1930s. These were mostly in the production of staple fibres and cellulosic fibres and were conducted in Italy and abroad. The closing up of the domestic market by the mid1930s gave a big incentive to those investments and allowed both the creation of a vast domestic market and the survival of the firms operating in that line of business. This article shows that, through the creation of a vast domestic market, autarky facilitated the survival and growth of that industry in Italy, although some of the innovations initiated in the 1930s came to be fully exploited only after 1945. [Publisher's text].