252 Hunting Nation (7)

"We have already met with Mr. Trinidad, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Spain to the Eastern Counties, and we have focused on matters relating to import and export tariffs on agricultural products. In short, through our joint efforts, the Ambassador of Trinidad finally agreed with the proposal made by the General Directorate of Customs to increase Peruvian grain imports. Although this has to be reported to the Governor of Peru and King Carlos for approval, I don't think there is a problem anymore. From this point of view, the central authorities are still concerned about the interests of the peasants and the people, and this is also a major benefit to those people who have cleared land in the face of the harsh natural environment, and it is worth celebrating. On December 11, 1687, outside the settlement of the newly established village of Enterprising on the right bank of the Paraná River (near the later town of Basel, southwest of Resistensia), Wang Dazhuang, who supervised the construction of irrigation canals, listened to the commissioner of the Ministry of Agriculture.

The commissioner is also an old acquaintance of Wang Dazhuang, his childhood playmate, the grandson of the agricultural system veteran Jin Kola, and a deputy director-level inspector of the Ministry of Agriculture. Jindalai came to the Hexi region (west of the Paraná River and west of the Paraguay River) on the orders of the Ministry of Agriculture to investigate the cross-border reclamation of the people on the east bank. In the first half of next year, the executive committee will take the lead in organizing a meeting on cross-border agricultural reclamation, and the leaders of the ministry do not want to have nothing to say at the meeting, so they will send people to come over in advance to find out and see if there is anything that needs help.

In this way, Jindalai came with the order, and then met Wang Dazhuang unexpectedly in Enterprising Township. The two chatted excitedly, and there was no lack of complaints about the Kingdom of Spain, the focus of which was naturally the matter of grain import tariffs that had just been discussed a while ago. This matter is not a secret in the capital, and many people know about it, so Jindalai also revealed it to Wang Dazhuang.

The import of grain from Peru began with the Southern Railway Company. At that time, the company imported truckloads of grain from Lima and other places, supplied the counties and townships in the southern cone, and even sold some back to the core areas of the country, making a lot of money. The low cost of growing food for the Spaniards (the manor model) and the ridiculously low import and export tariffs allowed it to flourish on the East Coast, making it to the tables of many people, and boosting the economies of places like Peru, giving them more money to buy all kinds of goods produced on the East Coast.

It should be said that the industrial and commercial enterprises on the east coast are more welcoming to this model. It sounds very good to entrust the production of grain to foreigners, let them maintain a little purchasing power, and then buy the industrial goods they produce or sell, and exploit agriculture with industry, and everyone is profitable. But this overlooks a key factor, and that is the interests of the peasants on the east coast, especially those who have overcome all odds to expand the territory of the frontier for the country, and their interests have been greatly harmed by the fall in food prices.

As a last resort, farmers on the East Coast have no choice but to find ways to reduce costs, increase agricultural production efficiency, and provide the market with a wide variety of products to maintain their incomes at a reasonable level. Taking the early development of the grassland and the Yazi Lake basin as examples, local farmers began to form agricultural production cooperatives in villages, and even in the case of multiple villages forming large-scale agricultural cooperatives together, they tried to rent agricultural machinery together, purchase seeds and fertilizers together, buy insurance together, and sell agricultural products together.

But this actually only reduces their unit production cost, and the effect is not unlimited, after the cost of Guy is reduced to a certain extent, it will be difficult to go down, unless they have a big breakthrough in production mode or technology, but how difficult it is. In other words, the model of agricultural production cooperatives is of great benefit to farmers, and the low-interest loans issued by the Public Savings Bank and the Northwest Reclamation Bank to farmers also have a certain positive effect, but neither of them can effectively solve one problem, that is, the slow decline in grain prices.

To put it bluntly, the supply of grain in the domestic market is too abundant, resulting in weak prices and farmers' incomes not meeting expectations, so various problems have arisen, such as the decline in the motivation to go to the border areas to buy land and pioneer. There are two ways to solve this problem: one is to increase the amount of grain exports, reduce the amount of grain that cannot be sold in the domestic market, and let the price rise; The second is to reduce supply, that is, to artificially reduce domestic grain production capacity or limit the import of cheap foreign grain, change the current imbalance between supply and demand, let the market play its role, and eventually restore prices to an acceptable level.

Of course, there is another way, that is, to increase financial subsidies for agriculture, and the government to support the price of grain, but this model needs to consume a lot of money and cannot be accepted by the government.

It was against this background that the East Coast government came to negotiate with the Spaniards and demanded a uniform import tariff of 30 percent on the four types of grains produced in Peru and New Spain: rice, wheat, corn, and sorghum. The state grain reserve depot has canceled the protective procurement of one million tons of grain every year, and it is necessary to give the peasants some sweetness, otherwise the negative impact on the real border policy of resettlement will be too great after a long time.

To be honest, the Spaniards were quite disgusted by this move on the east coast, and they did everything they could to stop it. It was a pity, however, that the Executive Committee was very determined in this matter to impose a tax on Spanish grain imports, and said that the unequal competition between the two countries in the trade of agricultural products had a long history, and that the Republic of the East Bank had suffered losses for many years, and that the farmers of the East Bank had also lost a great deal of profits, and that this abnormal state of affairs had to be corrected.

The Ambassador of Trinidad was in tears, but there was no better way. For many years, the Kingdom of Spain had been so weak in the face of the people on the east coast that it did not dare to resist, fearing that it would cause greater losses. They could only endure in silence the various bullies inflicted on them by the people of the East Coast, and after a long time, their spirit was almost completely gone.

The Ambassador of Trinidad did not think that the Governor General would do anything about the large increase in the tariffs on grain imports from the East Coast, nor did he think that King Carlos of Madrid would do anything, and that the thriving grain cultivation in Lima and Pisco should have cooled down considerably. In the future, the farmland where wheat and corn were originally grown will be greatly shifted to the cultivation of cash crops such as peppers, tobacco, and peanuts. For the time being, there are no tariffs on these agricultural products, and there are also symbolic 5% or 10%, which is completely acceptable, so it is foreseeable that the owners of Peruvian estates will work in this direction. In particular, there is still a lot to be done by the people on the east coast who have no import tariffs at all, and all of them are open to import.

"It's time for the state to pay attention to the farmers on the frontiers. They are all good children, who can't inherit land and property in their hometown, so they can only leave their hometown to come to this wild land and run their own industry with one foot and one foot. Moreover, they are new to the country, they are short of capital, their organizational skills are very average, and there are many difficulties in forming agricultural production cooperatives. The damn Northwest Reclamation Bank is still high, there is too much red tape, the efficiency is not high, it will take months to get a physical loan, and the daylilies are cold. These guys, where is the support for the farmers? Wang Dazhuang didn't hide anything in front of his friends, and said with some resentment.

"Don't worry too much. I have heard that next year, the Northwest Reclamation Bank will be reorganized, with a focus on the agricultural sector and providing small and micro loans in kind. The State Administration of Precious Metals has even given a special term called 'precision loans', that is, low-interest in-kind or cash loans are accurately delivered to farmers in need, helping them to better carry out production and business activities, and ultimately promoting the prosperity of the entire farmer group. Ah, by the way, I heard that the name of this bank will also be changed to East Coast Agricultural Bank, and the East Coast Company will be introduced as a strategic investor, accounting for 20% of the shares. The General Administration of Precious Metals believes that with the introduction of the professional management technology, philosophy and network of the East Coast Company, the East Coast Agricultural Bank will achieve greater development than before. Jindalee said with a grin.

If he was still talking seriously in the first paragraph, then the latter paragraph is nonsense. The East Coast Company has now transferred all its physical business and is no longer involved in industrial production, agricultural planting, commercial sales or any other production and business activities, and is already a pure equity investment fund, otherwise where do you think his nickname of Mr. 20% came from?

There is no doubt that the influence of the East Coast Company has penetrated into all aspects of the economy of the East Coast Republic, investing in various fields such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, mining and transportation, industrial production, commercial sales, banking and finance, and the investors are generally industry leaders and high-quality enterprises, and the annual dividends are very huge. This also ensures that the company has sufficient cash flow in hand and can make any investment it wants when the opportunity arises, and the two are a virtuous circle of facilitative relationship.

In general, East Coast companies do not interfere in the day-to-day operations of the shareholding companies. For example, Sun Chunyang South Store, a well-known interlocking shopping mall on the east coast, has a seat on the board of directors of the east coast company, which accounts for 20% of the shares, but its representative rarely speaks, and is completely a raised hand director, delegating all the company's management rights to its management team, which is very open. The style of the East Coast Company, on the other hand, has made many entrepreneurs very good at them, especially some enterprises in the period of rapid expansion, who hope that their enterprises can introduce the East Coast Company as a shareholder, which can not only bring them much-needed development funds, but also bring some networks, and the benefits are very huge.

Of course, not all of the companies in which the East Coast Company has a stake are profitable, in fact, sometimes the East Coast Company will also take a stake in some companies that seem to be less profitable but are very important, such as the East Coast Power Company. Of course, they know that electricity will not become the mainstream power source of society for a long time to come, which means that they only have input and no output in the near future, and from an investment point of view, it is not beneficial to invest in such an overly cutting-edge company.

But who makes them socially responsible? In order to make up for the lack of scientific research funds in the Science Spring Program, East Coast Company became its third largest shareholder with the funds after obtaining the consent of the majority of shareholders. For this reason, when TEPCO's revenue is small but its research expenditure is quite large, Dong'an has to fulfill its capital contribution obligations with other shareholders (mainly the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Engineering Technology Research Institute) every year to ensure that its equity is not diluted.

The restructured East Coast Agricultural Bank, in which they took a stake this time, was honestly not a particularly good investment. The bad debt rate of the largest financial company on the east coast is actually quite high, because it mostly borrows from farmers and herdsmen, agricultural cooperatives or agricultural enterprises, and the interest rate is very low, and sometimes it even needs to be waived from the interest, and the profits can be described as very small. In addition, many farmers (small farming enterprises) or fishermen (who buy fishing boats) do not operate well and cannot repay their loans, resulting in a high bad debt rate and very ugly accounts.

From a pure investment point of view, the investment value of the East Coast Agricultural Bank is even worse than that of the policy bank, the New World Friendship and Mutual Bank. Although the bank's business volume is not large, the interest rate on loans is high, and most of the objects are some large estate owners and mine owners in the Viceroyalty of New Courland and Peru, and they have clear collateral and are not worried that they will not repay, so the yield is still very high. Maybe the total amount is not as good as the Northwest Reclamation Bank, but the profit margin is not an order of magnitude high, and that's the difference.

In fact, the strong stake in the restructured East Coast Agricultural Bank was also aimed at improving its financial position and providing it with more adequate capital to some extent, because the State Administration of Precious Metals estimated the large and bloated financial enterprise very highly, allowing the East Coast Company to obtain a 20% stake in the restructured bank at a much higher premium.

"This is a broken bank!" Wang Dazhuang said in a tone of some hatred: "It is the biggest support of the farmers on the east coast, I hope it can be improved in the future, otherwise I think they will not be able to operate." Now that several settlements have been set up in the Hexi area, and many people have come here, I hope they can improve their business efficiency and better serve the farmers. These pioneers were courageous young men, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and determined, and we must not trap them, or my conscience will be troubled. Wang Dazhuang is now basically the chief person in charge of the development of the Hexi region, and he is also the head of several townships, and it is said that he will be promoted to a deputy department-level cadre next year, and he will justifiably coordinate the development of several newly established townships and towns, so he now regards these settlements and their people as "his own people", and is very concerned about their production and living conditions.

"It's really not easy for these young people." Jindalai agreed with Wang Dazhuang's evaluation of these pioneers, and only listened to him say: "In fact, the higher authorities also care about them. This time, it has not only restricted the import of foreign grain and increased tariffs, but also is trying to find ways to expand the demand of overseas markets. If you look at it, there will be a delegation to Portuguese Brazil in the near future and ask them to increase their purchases of our grain, and the same will be true of New Courland and the Caribbean, and they will have to be named one by one. In general, the country is still thinking of them, and is actively thinking of ways for them, and the cross-border reclamation operation in the Chaco Plain will not be affected, so you better relax, hehe. ”