Abstract
The research conducted during the first phase of this program revealed that the contribution of smaller firms of industrialised countries in the transfer of technology to Argentina was concentrated in two industrial sectors: metalworking and chemicals. An analysis of the overall quantitative evidence reflected in the Government Register of Technology Contracts and other sources of information on foreign investment1 showed the presence of 128 firms with less than 500 employees in their respective home countries,2 which appeared to have transferred technology for these two sectors in the late seventies and early eighties, via technology agreements or direct foreign investments (see Table 11.1 and 11.2). The share of SMEs was 19.4 per cent in the case of technology agreements and 8.1 per cent in the case of direct investments.
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Notes
See E. Basualdo, La estructura de propiedad del capital extranjero en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: CET, 1984).
See CEDREI, Alternative technology sources for developing countries: The role of small and medium-sized enterprises from industrialised countries 1986, Table 2, p. 20.
It must be taken into account that the main source for identifying cases was the National Register of Technology Transfer, which was started in the early 1970s under increasingly restrictive legislation; in 1977 it was drastically liberalised, a fact that, together with the low cost of foreign exchange derived from the economic polities applied during 1978–82, explains the general propensity of Argentine companies to pay for technology imports, despite the economic situation. In fact, durig 1977–83 the payments abroad for technology contracts amounted to at least US$1.7 billion, increasing by more than 1000 times between the two years, and accounting for about 3.3 per cent of a gross industrial product, which as we have seen had decreased by about 20 per cent in the same period. See INTI — SECYT, Contratos de importación de tecnología 1977–83 (Buenos Aires, 1985).
By 1981, establishments with less than 500 employees accounted for 90 per cent of employment in the metallic products sector and 81 per cent in the case of non-electric machinery. See CEPAL, El proceso de desarrollo de la perqueña y mediana empresa. y su papel en el sistema industrial: el case de Italia (United Nations (ECLA), 1988).
See CEDREI, Alternative technology sources (1988), pp. 127–9.
See CEDREI, Alternative technology sources (1986).
See on this J. Katz, ‘Cambio Technológico en la Industria Metalmecànica Latinoamericana’, Revista de la CEPAL, (19 April 1983), pp. 122–3.
See Secretary of Industry, Productivity Survey, cited in W. Bank, Argentina Industrial Sector Study (April 1988), p. 100.
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© 1997 Peter J. Buckley, Jaime Campos, Hafiz Mirza and the estate of Eduardo White
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White, E., Campos, J. (1997). The Case of Argentina. In: Buckley, P.J., Campos, J., Mirza, H., White, E. (eds) International Technology Transfer by Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25686-0_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25686-0_11
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