ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with credit schemes, which were largely initiated by the government, and then considers the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation’s (IRC’s) own attempts to help to improve performance in the machine tool industry. The IRC's involvement began towards the end of 1966, when Mintech was examining a scheme to help to provide more machine tools for machine tool manufacturers themselves. On 31 March the IRC Board agreed that the Corporation would try to devise scheme to encourage selected machine tool companies to expand their capacity, would ask machine tool firms how the IRC could help them, and would then suggest a strategy for the industry. Although the IRC had been involved in merger talks on Staveley until late in 1969, it had decided long before that its main course of action must be to support direct investment, where this was needed to strengthen individual companies in the machine tool industry.
