	The regime of Benito Mussolini extended nationalisation, creating the Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI) as a State holding company for struggling firms, including the car maker Alfa Romeo. A parallel body, Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (Eni) 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.