List of nationalizations by country


This is a list of industries, services, products, or companies that have been nationalized by country.

List

Argentina

Most utilities were nationally owned before being privatized in 1994.
On the break-up of Yugoslavia, The HDZ government nationalized private agricultural property and rezoned it under the guise of forest statesmanship, when their publicly professed agenda was to only complete the nationalization of the communists. Much of this land is in the process of being reinstated and the model rethought.

Cuba

After the Cuban Revolution of 1959 the Castro government gradually expropriated all foreign-owned private companies, most of which were owned by American corporations and individuals. The immediate trigger was the refusal by American-owned oil refineries to refine the crude oil received from the Soviet Union. Faced with the prospect of no oil, Cuba nationalized the three American refineries. This action escalated the US embargo on Cuba, which responded by nationalizing all American owned property. Eventually all Cuban private property, largely owned by Cubans sympathetic to the Batista led dictatorship, was nationalized.
Beginning in 1966, the Castro government nationalized all remaining privately owned businesses in Cuba, down to the level of street vendors. The process accelerated on March 14, 1968, with a new "revolutionary offensive."
Castro had offered bonds at 4.5% interest over twenty years to U.S. companies, but U.S. ambassador Philip Bonsal requested the compensation up front and rejected the offer. A minor amount of $1.3 million, was paid to U.S. interests before deteriorating relations ended all cooperation between the two governments. The U.S. established a registry of claims against the Cuban government, ultimately developing files on 5,911 specific companies. The Cuban government has refused to discuss the compensation of U.S. claims and the U.S. government continues to insist on compensation for U.S. companies.

Czechoslovakia

Nationalisation dates back to the 'regies' or state monopolies organized under the Ancien Régime, for example, the monopoly on tobacco sales. Communications companies France Telecom and La Poste are relics of the state postal and telecommunications monopolies.
There was a major expansion of the nationalised sector following World War II. A second wave followed in 1982.
The Paris regional transport operator, RATP Group, can also be counted as a nationalised industry.

Germany

The railways were nationalised after World War I. Partial privatisation of Deutsche Bahn was planned in 2008 but stopped due to the World Economic Crisis. As of 2020 there are no plans for privatisation.
Large sections of the mining, banking, and shipping industries either became dependent on government money or were placed entirely under care of the Weimar Republic in the wake of the Great Depression; these were later reprivatized between 1934-1937 by the Nazi regime.
Nationalization under Nazi Germany was substantial. Over 500 major companies were either nationalized or absorbed by state-owned companies, one of the largest being the Hermann Göring Works, mostly operated by the Nazi Party apparatus.
Most enterprises in East Germany were nationalised following World War II. After reunification, an agency, Treuhand, was established to return them to private ownership, however many were liquidated.
The nationalised banks were credited by many, including former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, to have helped the Indian economy withstand the global financial crisis of 2007-2009.
Railways were nationalised in the 1940s as Córas Iompair Éireann.
The regime of Benito Mussolini extended nationalisation, creating the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale as a State holding company for struggling firms, including the car maker Alfa Romeo. A parallel body, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi was set up to manage State oil and gas interests. Fascist Italy had nationalized over three-fourths of its economy by 1939, more so than any nation other than the Soviet Union. Mussolini had earlier boasted in 1934 that “Three-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state." By 1939 the Italian state had taken over four-fifths of Italy's shipping and shipbuilding, three-fourths of pig iron production, and nearly half of the steel industry.

Japan

Many lands, enterprises and industries were also nationalized by the Soviet Civil Administration and the Worker's Party-dominated provisional government in northern Korea after World War II, which later became the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in 1948.

Lithuania

In 2011 Snoras bank was nationalized.

Latvia

In 2008 Parex Bank was nationalized.

Malta

During the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, important companies such as Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, Philippine Airlines, Meralco and the Manila Hotel were nationalized. Other companies were sometimes absorbed into these government-owned corporations, as well as other companies, such as National Power Corporation and the Philippine National Railways, which in their own right are monopolies. Today, these companies have been reprivatized and some, such as PLDT and Philippine Airlines, have been de-monopolized. Others, like government-owned and controlled corporation Napocor, are in the process of privatization.

Poland

The Arusha Declaration was proclaimed in 1967 by President Julius Nyerere, which aimed to achieve self-reliance through nationalising key sectors of the economy such as banks, large industries and plantations were therefore nationalised. This failed, worsening Tanzania's economic problems until foreign aid and liberalisation took effect in the 1980s and 1990s.

Turkey

After the abolition of Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire by the Treaty of Lausanne, foreign concessions were suppressed, rail transport, electric power generation and distribution, telephone network and other big industrial firms were nationalized by Turkish government between 1928 and 1940.

United Kingdom

Nationalization was a key feature of the first post World War II Labour government, from 1945 to 1951 under Clement Attlee. The coal and steel industries were just two of many industries or services to be nationalised, while the formation of the National Health Service in 1948 entitled everyone to universal health care. The subsequent Conservative governments led by Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Alec Douglas-Home and Edward Heath allowed practically all of the nationalized industries and services to remain in public ownership, as part of the Post-War Consensus. However, the election victory of Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives in 1979 saw the vast majority of nationalized industries, services and utilities privatized within a decade, although the National Health Service was allowed to continue. The Labour Party initially opposed Thatcher's privatization, but the party's commitment to nationalisation had been abandoned by the time it swept back into power in 1997 under Tony Blair. However, in February 2008, Blair's successor Gordon Brown nationalized the failing Northern Rock bank during the Great Recession. The much larger Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland were partially nationalized for the same reason in October of that year. After nearly four years in public ownership, Northern Rock was sold to Virgin Money and Royal Bank of Scotland agreed a branch sale to the Santander Group in November 2011. However, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds remain in public ownership five years later and in November 2012 the Public Accounts Committee warned that it could be many years before the banks are sold and the £66 billion so far invested in these banks may never be recovered.

British assets nationalised by other countries