Chapter 333 Triangle Alliance
The purpose of growing japonica rice in the Great Lakes region is not only to take into account the temperature difference with the coastal plains of East Africa, but also to enhance competitiveness in the international market.
Food markets such as the Far East, Japan, North Korea and parts of Southeast Asia have very different rice requirements from those in the Middle East and India.
The current situation of the international grain market is that it is becoming more and more competitive, with the addition of East African grain production and the expansion of production in grain-producing areas such as the United States, Australia, Canada and Tsarist Russia.
It is now certain that the world's food production capacity is in excess, even earlier than this time period in the previous life. What maintains the excess food production capacity is the rapid development of industrialization in various countries. Now the whole world is in extreme prosperity before the economic crisis. Everyone is blindly investing in production. Anyway, they can make money by doing anything. Once the economic bubble is burst, an economic crisis will inevitably break out within one or two years.
In order to avoid risks, Ernst's next goal is to optimize East African industries, develop East African internal markets, dispose of Europe's non-performing assets, and further strengthen East Africa's economic barriers to separate it from the world market.
In fact, East Africa has always been economically disconnected from the world market. As a country owned by a consortium, all of East Africa's foreign trade must go through the "connector" of the Hexingen Consortium, so East Africa's foreign trade is not in line with the world market.
Therefore, the world economic crisis has limited impact on purely agricultural countries such as East Africa, and may even have a beneficial effect. This can be seen from the Far East, which actually became the hottest period for industrial investment during the world economic crisis.
Although it is beneficial to East Africa, the economic crisis will affect how much profit the Hechingen Consortium can make. After all, most of the Hechingen Consortium's assets are in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Because of the disruption in East Africa, Ernst was not sure when this time-space economic crisis would suddenly break out.
Historically, it was in early 1873, but signs had already appeared in late 1872, mainly because the railway production in the United States stopped rolling. However, the first place where the crisis broke out was the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the center of the crisis was in the United States.
…
July 1871.
Due to the construction of Nairobi in East Africa, some industrial workers were diverted from the Far East. In addition, due to the reduction in orders caused by the end of the two wars in Europe, some machines in Jiaozhou's textile industry were shut down, and capacity reduction in Jiaozhou's textile industry was inevitable.
This capacity reduction is aimed at the textile industry invested by the Heixingen Group in the Far East. In fact, due to the immigration of workers, the capacity of Jiaozhou's cotton textile industry has been reduced. This time, the Heixingen Group mainly sells off the excess machines after the capacity reduction.
Jiaozhou Textile Factory.
Levins, the sales representative of Jiaozhou Textile Factory, said: "Mr. Joe! Look at these machines. They have been in operation for less than two years. They can be used as new equipment and will not be eliminated by the market even in the next ten years. There were Japanese companies that had expressed their intention to buy them before you, but we decided to keep most of these machines in the Far East."
It is impossible to sell the machines to Japan. When these machines were ordered, they were the most advanced in the world and they are still in the first echelon now.
However, due to reforms, Japan's textile industry has achieved tremendous development. Ernst does not want to help Japan improve its mechanization level. He believes that continuing to run a sweatshop is the best option for Japan.
At present, the West has a technological blockade against the East, mainly a blockade of advanced machinery. Even if they export machinery, they are some technologically backward machinery that is about to be eliminated. The machines of Jiaozhou Textile Factory were imported from Britain by the Hexingen Consortium in the name of Germany (Prussia), so there were no obstacles at the time, and British manufacturers did not expect that the Hexingen Consortium would assemble and build factories in the Far East.
Qiao Zhiyong: "Mr. Levins! Although your factory's machinery does look new, it is second-hand after all, and the price is too high!"
Levins shook his head and said, "Mr. Qiao, I want to popularize some concepts for you. These machines are first-class even in Europe, and the production efficiency is very high. If you have the ability to visit the UK, you will find that many local textile companies in the UK have not even applied them and are still using more backward machines. Therefore, the machines we plan to sell are completely unsalable in the Far East. If you miss this opportunity, it will be a loss for you and your country."
Qiao Zhiyong: "Well, that being said, I am just running a small business and have no experience in this area, so I have to take a huge risk!"
If I believe you, there will be trouble!
Jiaozhou Textile Factory has its own considerations when looking for buyers. Merchants without sufficient financial strength are not qualified to come here to check out the goods.
There are a number of business tycoons in the South who are capable of taking over, but they have close ties with British capital, and the Heixingen Group doesn't even give them a chance to get in. To put it bluntly, that's aiding the enemy.
As a large conglomerate representing German capital, Hechingen was one of the competitors of British capital in the international market, especially after the reunification of Germany.
As a business tycoon in the northern region, Qiao Zhiyong represents the most powerful Shanxi merchants in the north.
The representative business of Shanxi merchants was the Piaohao, which is equivalent to opening a bank in the West. They were half-peers of the Heixinggen Bank, so their strength was naturally very strong.
The most important thing is that there is no influence from other foreign countries behind it. It is a business group native to the Far East and a partner that the Hechingen Bank can cooperate with.
Moreover, the base camp of Shanxi merchants is in the northwest region, mainly in Shanxi and Shaanxi, as well as Inner and Outer Mongolia. Their business scope does not overlap with that of the Heixingen Group. The business scope currently developed by the Heixingen Group is mainly concentrated in North China, and the farthest radiates to northern Anhui, eastern Henan and southern Zhili. This is already the limit. After all, the north does not have such a dense water network as the south, and there is also competition from Britain and France in Yantai next door.
If the Heixingen Group and Shanxi merchants establish a cooperative relationship, the Heixingen Group and East Africa will be able to expand their business to the hinterland of the Far East, North and South through the commercial channels of Shanxi merchants.
Levins: "Mr. Joe, you are a man with vision. Don't care about such a small profit. Just imagine, if you get this batch of machines, you can use the population market and resources in the northeast hinterland of your Far East to build a cotton textile enterprise comparable to the south. According to our understanding, the north and northwest of your country are suitable for cotton planting."
While the two were negotiating, the Jiaozhou Textile Factory in the next workshop was also negotiating with the Huizhou merchant representative Hu Xueyan.
That's right, this time the Heixingen Consortium is trying to get the best of both worlds, because the Jiaozhou Textile Factory has to cut its production capacity by half, and as the largest textile factory in the Far East, half of its production capacity is not a small number.
East Africa is not a powerful country. It only relies on Germany's influence in the Far East. It is good enough to occupy a place in the north.
If you want to further develop in the Far East, you must have agents and partners. Shanxi merchants and Huizhou merchants, as the two major business groups in the Far East, have the economic strength to cooperate with East Africa.
Although the two business groups seem to be doing well now, in fact both of them are in a very dangerous situation. As two representatives of Far Eastern commerce, they also face competition from foreign capital.
It is a good idea to demarcate the sphere of influence of each other and the outsider Hei Xinggen this time, so as to reduce the internal friction among the three parties and prevent capital from other countries from taking advantage of the situation.
Everyone is a competitor of capital from Britain, France, the United States and other countries, so it is necessary to stick together. If the three parties combine, they can stabilize the independence of the regional economy within their respective business scope. Of course, it would be another matter if the competitors opened a breakthrough through war.
For example, the Huizhou merchants had a very dangerous geographical location. The Yangtze and Huaihe River basins were where British capital already had a bridgehead, and the entire Yangtze River coast was not safe.
In other words, Huizhou merchants still had some resistance. For example, Hu Xueyan historically confronted foreign capital and was ultimately destroyed by the joint suppression of his own bureaucracy and foreign forces.
(End of this chapter)
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