The problem that most affected the Spanish trading in the Far East was the absence of a strong

enterpreneurial structure, something similar to the problems Spain faced in the rest of the world: only family-type businesses with scarce resources were predominant in those export-import activities in ports like Kobe or Shanghai. These small businesses operated mainly as locally based agents, purchasing in the name of their clients, evaluating merchandise, surveying the shipments and paying orders through bank loans, although in these cases the money was held until due authorisation for the money order was received. After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil (1936) and the Sino-Japanese (1937) Wars, most businesses in those ports broken, partly because the wars caused the fall in the mutual trading activities and partly because the Spanish exchange policy strongly restricted the access to foreign currency after Franco's Nacionales' success, forcing the workers or owners of these little companies to find jobs with companies of other nationalities. Related partially to this fact, the most constantly mentioned problem in the documents -in addittion to the previously mentioned absence of a strong trading structure-, was the lack of a Spanish navigation line between the Philippines and Spain, although some of the routes reaching Northern Europe from the Far East made a stopover in Barcelona.