Big business, market power and small nations: The Norwegian aluminium and nickel industries 1920–39

Introduction Besides traditional Norwegian export staples, such as fish and timber products, metals and other electro-metallurgical products rapidly gained significance after 1905. The most important were aluminium, carbide, ferro-alloys, nickel, sulphur, zinc and chemical fertilisers. Growth continued in the 1930s. Whereas total exports in 1938 barely exceeded the 1929 level, exports of metals and fertilisers increased by 50 per cent during this period. In 1938 these products constituted 25 per cent of Norwegian commodity exports.1