National champions
Encyclopedia
National champion is a political concept in which large corporations in strategic sectors are expected not only to seek profit but also to "advance the interests of the nation.”
This policy has been popular and practiced by many countries.
Its pinnacle is probably the post-WWII era in France as part of the dirigisme
Dirigisme
Dirigisme is an economy in which the government exerts strong directive influence. While the term has occasionally been applied to centrally planned economies, where the state effectively controls both production and allocation of resources , it originally had neither of these meanings when...

. It was phased out during the 1970s when public monies wants to ”lame ducks” to save employment and “big projects” to promote “la grandeur" rather than helping "real stars”.
Other examples include the creation of the British Steel Corporation by the UK government who acquired the largest fourteen domestic steel companies in 1967.
The risk involved with such policies is exemplified by the unsuccessful challenges to IBM’s dominance of the computer market by UK’s ICL,  France’s Bull
Groupe Bull
-External links:* * — Friends, co-workers and former employees of Bull and Honeywell* *...

,  and  Italy’s Olivetti
Olivetti
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- Founding :The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti...

 during the 1970s.
The “national champion” policy has made a come back in the current century with Russia as its maximal exponent (see below). We can also cite the merger of E.ON
E.ON
E.ON AG, marketed with an interpunct as E•ON, is the holding company of the world's largest investor-owned energy service provider based in Düsseldorf, Germany. The name comes from the Greek word aeon which means eternity....

 with Ruhrgas backed by the German government in 2000 or the merger of GDF with Suez backed by the French government in 2008.

Russian Renewal

More recently, (former Russian president) Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...

 has made “ National Champions" a central axis of his policy.
The concept was introduced by Putin in his 1997 dissertation "Strategic Planning of the Reproduction of the Resource Bases." Putin, in turn, may have gotten the idea from a textbook by University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

 analysts William King
William King
William King may refer to:*Bill King, , American radio announcer*Billy King , Irish cricketer*Willie King , blues guitarist and singer...

 and David Cleland. Putin later expanded on the subject in an article published in 1999 in the Journal of the St. Petersburg Mining Institute.

Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

 had also advocated similar ideas when he was the president of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 in the 1950s.

Vertical integration

In his dissertation, Putin wrote: The process of restructuring the national economy must have the goal of creating the most effective and competitive companies on both the domestic and world markets."

Putin's 1999 article proposes that the state should closely regulate and develop the natural resources sector through creating companies with close links to the power vertical, making the firms big enough to compete with multinationals. These companies would become “national champions,” representing the state’s interest in international commerce.

Most national champions are likely to be 50% or more owned by the Russian government, but there is no reason why predominantly private companies could not also serve as national champions, given the right guidance and pressure.

Advancing national interests

Instead of allowing the country's oligarch-controlled corporations to focus exclusively on making profit, Putin proposed that they should be used instead to advance the country's national interests. Russia should reclaim some of the assets that were so carelessly privatized during Yeltsin, and integrate them vertically into industrial conglomerates so they could compete better with Western multinational corporations.
One example of the concept is that energy corporations such as Gazprom
Gazprom
Open Joint Stock Company Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company. Its headquarters are in Cheryomushki District, South-Western Administrative Okrug, Moscow...

 should keep the prices inside Russia low, as a form of subsidy for the public, and only strive for maximal profit in foreign countries.

Examples

  • South Korea
    • Hyundai
  • Brazil
    • Embraer
  • Russia
    • Gazprom
      Gazprom
      Open Joint Stock Company Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company. Its headquarters are in Cheryomushki District, South-Western Administrative Okrug, Moscow...

    • Rosneft
      Rosneft
      Rosneft is an integrated oil company majority owned by the Government of Russia. Rosneft is headquartered in Moscow’s Balchug district near the Kremlin, across the Moskva river...

    • United Aircraft Corporation
      United Aircraft Corporation
      United Aircraft Corporation may refer to one of the following:* United Aircraft Corporation, formerly United Aircraft and Transport Corporation; now known as United Technologies Corporation....

  • Europe
    • Pan-European
      • EADS
        EADS
        The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company N.V. is a global pan-European aerospace and defence corporation and a leading defence and military contractor worldwide...

    • France
      • Thales
        Thales Group
        The Thales Group is a French electronics company delivering information systems and services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets...

      • Areva
        Areva
        AREVA is a French public multinational industrial conglomerate headquartered in the Tour Areva in Courbevoie, Paris. AREVA is mainly known for nuclear power; it also has interests in other energy projects. It was created on 3 September 2001, by the merger of Framatome , Cogema and...

  • Venezuela
    • PDVSA/CITGO
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