The year was a clear example of the policy of support and co-operation for the development of the MCC cooperatives, which overall earmarked around €523m for investment. Caja Laboral surpassed another mythical figure: one trillion pesetas, or what amounts to the same, €6bn in terms of assets under administration, with a year-on-year increase of 12%.
The MCC’s total sales also passed the trillion barrier in pesetas (€6.27bn), a result in which the excellent performance of export sales stood out, in spite of the initial lethargy in the international markets. The takeover by Fagor Electrodomésticos and MCC Inversiones of the Polish firm Wrozamet, a local domestic appliance manufacture, stood out. It is also worth highlighting that the following firms all set up plants abroad: Batz in Brazil, Cikautxo in the Czech Republic, Maier in Great Britain and Irizar in Mexico. The Basque Foundation for Quality Euskalit also awarded Irizar the Gold Q; whilst Copreci and Fagor Electrónica were awarded the Silver Q. The EroskiGroup, which had signed a collaboration agreement with the Food Bank Foundation, handed over close to 300,000 kilos of products to this humanitarian organisation.
