Multinational companies and national development: MIFERMA and Mauretania

MIFERMA, an iron ore mining consortium set up by French, British, Italian and German steel capital, was established during a period when Mauretania, as a source of cheap raw materials, was being integrated through the colonial system, and through French imperialism, into the world capitalist economy. As MIFERMA's iron ore output increased, it replaced less profitable operations in France itself, causing unemployment and social dislocation. MIFERMA has made enormous profits from its operations but has failed to invest them in financially more risky mining projects in other areas which might make a greater contribution to economic development. It has repatriated profits and is rapidly exhausting the reserves in the areas mined. The company has a close relationship with the State, providing a third of its budget. MIFERMA has presided over the development of the capitalist mode of production in Mauretania, which has resulted in an increasingly cohesive working class on the one hand, and the acceleration of rural poverty on the other, through the process of labour migration. There have been pressures for nationalisation in order to control the company's activities and these pressures are likely to be successful, but they will not resolve the increasing contradiction between the neo‐colonial state and the growing consciousness of the workers.