Chapter 1671 Industrial Recovery
It is normal for East Africa to have frequent economic and trade activities in the Adriatic Sea. Apart from the Kingdom of Dalmatia, an East African-backed country, East Africa has trade relations with all the countries around the Adriatic Sea.
For example, Germany's rise in Central and Eastern Europe has caused East Africa to lose a large portion of its industrial export market, but the trade volume between Germany and East Africa in agricultural and mineral products is still very large.
Needless to say, countries outside of Germany, such as Italy, Yugoslavia, Dalmatia, Albania, and Montenegro, are also included.
East Africa's trade volume in the Adriatic Sea and throughout the Balkans is second only to its trade with Germany.
Therefore, both the French and the Soviets, in supporting Yugoslavia, would choose East African merchant ships and trading companies as a cover.
Moreover, there is another advantage to going through East Africa, which is an important trading partner of the Soviet Union and France. East African merchant ships and trading companies are common in French and Soviet ports.
Therefore, both countries can entrust or hire East African merchants to help them do some relatively secretive things within their own borders.
This made the work of East African merchant ships in the Adriatic Sea even busier.
...
Mostar.
This important inland city in the southern part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia has once again relaxed.
With the agreement reached between the Kingdom of Dalmatia and the government of Yugoslavia, the railway through Mostar resumed service to Yugoslavia, or the former Bosnia region.
Goods from the port of Ploče were transported to various parts of Yugoslavia via the Mostar Railway.
Conversely, goods from the Yugoslav interior also began to choose to sail from the port of Ploce again, and large quantities of wool, timber, and grain once again appeared on the Mostar Railway.
With the reopening of borders and trade between the two countries, the Mostar city government clearly does not want to miss this opportunity.
In early March 1938, Mostar convened a special economic conference. Mayor Henwick summoned Mostar officials and key businesses to the meeting as soon as the relevant documents were issued.
"Now that the kingdom has resumed trade with Yugoslavia, this is one of the most important opportunities for the future development of Mostar."
“Trade with inland countries and regions of the Balkans from the late 19th to the 20th century, or trade with former Bosnia, Serbia and other regions and countries, is an important reason why Mostar became the economic core city in the south of the empire.”
"But since the disintegration of the empire, Dalmatia, Bosnia, Croatia and other countries have been divided into two new countries, and Mostar has suffered the most severe economic development disaster in history."
"Many businesses that previously focused on developing trade with the inland areas are facing difficulties, going bankrupt, and the revenue of sectors such as transportation has plummeted. The municipal government is also facing a major financial crisis."
"Therefore, we in Mostar must now regroup and take advantage of the formal confirmation of this treaty between the two countries to re-establish Mostar's status as an important transportation and economic center in the Balkans."
The empire that Hanwes was referring to was the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Dalmatia, Croatia, and Bosnia were all part of the same country.
Therefore, at that time, Dalmatia and these regions naturally had no tariff barriers or so-called border concepts.
For Bosnia in particular, the Mostar Railway is its most important export route.
The Bosnian market alone made Mostar very prosperous back then, not to mention that through Bosnia, Mostar could also get orders from Serbia and even Hungary.
These good days lasted until Yugoslavia was fully established.
Officials in Mostar now have some doubts about Yugoslavia.
“Mayor Hanves, re-establishing trade relations with Yugoslavia is not difficult, but the relationship between the two countries is full of uncertainties.”
"Especially since Yugoslavia closed its borders and restricted trade with us at the beginning of its establishment, will the Yugoslav government go back on its word later?"
In response to the official's concerns, Hanwes stated, "Such concerns are completely unnecessary, especially for our city of Mostar."
“Our city of Mostar is an industrial city, while the kingdom itself is a small country with a limited market. Therefore, if our city of Mostar wants to develop, it must go out into the world.”
"Compared to coastal cities like Ploche, it is more difficult for our city of Mostar to conduct overseas trade activities."
"Therefore, we can only focus our attention on the inland areas, especially the heart of the Balkans, which are the former Bosnia and Serbia."
“If we don’t do this, Mostar can still develop, but it will be completely impossible to achieve rapid economic growth.”
"Especially against the backdrop of the rise of a number of coastal towns in our country, their transportation has become more convenient due to maritime transport, which has enabled them to better undertake trade with the Adriatic region and East Africa."
Since the Age of Exploration, coastal areas have had an advantage in development, and Dalmatia is a very typical country that relies on maritime trade.
Mostar is one of the few inland towns in the Kingdom of Dalmatia; in fact, it is the largest inland city in Dalmatia.
If Mostar wanted to compete with the coastal towns in the country, it had to absorb the inland market of Yugoslavia to offset the disadvantage of not having maritime transport.
Mayor Hanwes continued, "Dubrovnik has been developing rapidly recently, and there are reports that the Dubrovnik railway may be restarted. This means that if we don't speed things up, we may face competition from Dubrovnik in the future."
The so-called Dubrovnik Railway, which is the abandoned railway between Dalmatia and Yugoslavia, would inevitably take away a large part of the market originally occupied by Mostar if it were completed.
Mayor Hanwes continued, "We must take action before this railway is built."
"The first step is to fully restore some of the original industries and foreign trade in Mostar, and to re-establish contact with mine owners, farms and customers in Yugoslavia."
"For example, wool textile mills and meat processing plants in our city should immediately resume work and business operations."
Mostar once had a thriving wool textile industry, and the raw materials undoubtedly came from many regions of Yugoslavia.
Sheep farming is a very important industry in the Balkans, including Bosnia and Serbia.
Mostar used to be able to obtain relatively inexpensive wool from these places via rail and road, which was then processed and exported to other parts of Europe.
The Kingdom of Dalmatia itself is small in area, with very little plains. So, although it is also a Balkan country, Dalmatia's livestock industry is not developed and is relatively small in scale. Therefore, when Yugoslavia cut off its wool supply, it dealt a fatal blow to the wool textile industry in Mostar at that time.
Subsequently, the company continued to operate by purchasing or importing wool from other places, but it was clear that the cost of importing wool from other places was far greater than that of importing it from Yugoslavia.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Mostar's wool textile industry was quite famous in the Adriatic region.
This was due to a combination of factors. Firstly, Mostar had access to cheap wool from the interior at the time, and secondly, East Africa provided technical support, which effectively controlled production costs.
In addition, the decline of Venice was also an important contributing factor. From the late 19th century until the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Venice suffered from the effects of numerous wars.
Venice was originally an important wool textile center on the Adriatic coast, so during Venice's decline, the city of Mostar took over part of Venice's market in the Adriatic region.
Therefore, the wool textile industry is an extremely important industry for the city of Mostar, and Mayor Henwes hopes to restore the industry's glory.
Now the conditions are also right. Although Mostar's wool textile industry has experienced severe setbacks, the workers, machines, and factories are still there. Now, as long as the wool supply from Yugoslavia is restored, this will not be difficult to accomplish.
Mayor Hanweis stated directly, "Therefore, the municipal government will introduce relevant support policies for the wool textile industry. At the same time, we will also try our best to request subsidies from the Kingdom to accelerate the recovery of this industry."
"Meat processing plants in Mostar will also receive some support."
Meat processing companies in Mostar are much smaller than the wool textile industry, but they used to be an important source of income for the city.
Moreover, Mostar has a relatively broad market for meat sales and exports. The Kingdom of Dalmatia itself is an important consumer of pork and mutton. After all, Dalmatia is a German country, and its lifestyle is very similar to that of Germany and East Africa.
Furthermore, due to the origins of its immigrants, the Kingdom of Dalmatia consumes pork even more than Germany.
Of course, if that were all, resuming meat processing would certainly not be worth the Mayor of Mostar's attention.
Pork exports from Mostar are also an important source of foreign exchange.
During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, pork processed in Mostar was exported directly to East Africa and the German regions of Europe.
The composition of this industrial chain is primarily due to the fact that the Yugoslavs, namely the former Bosnia and Serbia, both had sizable pig farming industries.
Even today, pig farming remains a vital economic pillar for Yugoslavia, an agricultural country. In the 19th century, pork exports accounted for more than 80 percent of Serbia's total exports.
Previously, countries such as Austria-Hungary even contemptuously referred to Serbia as the "Kingdom of Pig Herders".
However, regardless of the circumstances, pork exports remain a significant source of revenue for Yugoslavia.
Mostar once purchased live pigs directly from Bosnia and Serbia, then slaughtered and processed them locally before selling them to countries such as Germany, Austria-Hungary, and East Africa.
During the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Mostar's pork products were mainly supplied to the East African market.
Since the 20th century, East Africa has been the world's largest consumer of pork and the world's largest importer of pork.
Although the Far Eastern Empire ranked first among the world's major pork-consuming countries with a population of 400 million, its consumption capacity in this era was clearly incomparable to that of East Africa.
Other countries, such as Germany, have strong purchasing power, but their populations are far smaller than those of East Africa, so they cannot compete with East Africa.
Besides the strong demand for pork, the development of the pig farming industry in East Africa itself has not been smooth. After all, East Africa is not a country that is naturally very suitable for the development of the livestock industry.
Especially in pig farming, due to African swine fever and other reasons, the pork market in East Africa has been in a state of supply shortage.
In recent years, East African governments have also tended to transfer some agricultural supply links that are not suitable for development in East Africa to overseas markets.
For example, wheat was imported from the Soviet Union and Argentina, beef from Paraguay and Uruguay, and pork from the world's major pork-producing countries...
This is also beneficial to the development of East Africa's foreign trade. After all, East Africa is an industrial country, and the most important aspect of foreign trade is selling its industrial products to other countries in the world.
Correspondingly, East African governments tend to support certain industries in the major East African markets in order to maintain a balance in trade between the two sides.
"Earning the last penny" is always a short-sighted approach. Non-industrialized countries that develop trade with East Africa have fewer ways to make money.
It's impossible for East Africa to keep exporting industrial goods to them while they lack the capacity to return them in the form of other goods.
The Kingdom of Dalmatia is a typical example. East Africa's support for the Kingdom of Dalmatia was obviously not entirely free, but the Kingdom of Dalmatia itself was a small country with a small population and a relatively low income level.
Therefore, when East Africa supports the Kingdom of Dalmatia, it also focuses on exploring the Kingdom of Dalmatia's economic development potential, thereby helping it find new sources of economic growth.
This is how East Africa used to import pork from Mostar.
Mayor Hanwes said, "As long as trade with Yugoslavia resumes, we can restore as much as possible our sales to customers in East Africa and Germany, with pork exports being the most important part of that."
The Kingdom of Dalmatia itself does not raise pigs, or at least on a very small scale, so unsurprisingly, the "pigs" in Mostar come from inland Yugoslavia.
It's worth mentioning, however, that Mostar's pork used to be exported to Germany. After all, Germany has a large population, but its land area is rather small compared to its population.
Therefore, apart from developing crop cultivation, Germany has had to abandon or invest less in other agricultural sectors due to its limited land area and arable land.
Previously, Mostar's pork exports to Germany mainly consisted of ham and sausages, which are now two new food processing industries.
In pork exports to East Africa, in addition to processed products such as ham and sausages, chilled pork is also an important item, just like beef exports from Argentina.
There is a great demand for fresh pork in East Africa, which stems from the diversity of food preparation methods in the region.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
