African Entrepreneurship Record

1899.

Asunción, Paraguay.

After experiencing the Paraguayan War, Paraguay has now fully recovered its strength, and its population has returned to pre-war levels in the 1980s.

The only pity is that after the Paraguay War, Paraguay was further away from the sea. However, through the two excellent waterways of the Parana River and its tributary, the Paraguay River, Paraguay's internal and external trade was not greatly affected.

At the fork of the Paraná and Paraguay rivers, East Africa's Paraguayan trade commercial fleet is being diverted.

"The destination of the Aaron Green, Ovim, and Paraquinma is Oriental City, and we enter the Paraguay River northwest, and then arrive at Asunción, the capital of Paraguay." Captain Creed said to the trainee crew members.

"In the trade between East Africa and Paraguay, Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, and Oriental, the second largest city in Paraguay, are our main destinations. In the future, your ships will most likely be wandering between these two cities and East Africa."

"Captain, is there anything special about Dongfang City?" Someone asked, mainly because there is also a Dongfang City in East Africa on Pemba Island in the Indian Ocean.

Captain Creed explained: "The Oriental City in Paraguay is on the Paraná River. In the local language, it should be called Ciudad del Este, but Ciudad del Este means Oriental City. As for our domestic Oriental City, it is in the Indian Ocean. The concepts of the two are completely different. As a small country, Paraguay has a small population and a small economy, so our trade with Paraguay is mainly carried out through Asuncion and Oriental City, two cities that are barely adequate in size. "

Although Paraguay's economy and population have emerged from the shadow of the war, it cannot change the actual national conditions of Paraguay's small country. Today, Paraguay has a population of more than 700,000, of which only Asunción and Oriente City have a population of more than 50,000.

"Asunción is the capital of Paraguay, and across the river is Argentina, so Asunción is actually an important trade node city between East Africa, Paraguay and Argentina."

In fact, Asunción was not across the river from Argentina, but after the Paraguay War, the south bank of the Paraguay River was ceded to Argentina, and the other side of the river was actually the former Paraguayan territory.

However, after the Paraguay War, the population of Paraguay was almost wiped out, so there were basically not many Paraguayans in the ceded territory. Now the population of Paraguay is mainly a mixture of the three major ethnic groups: Italians, Indians, and Paraguayans. .

Captain Creed continued: "Compared with this, Oriental City is even more incredible. Oriental City is located at the confluence of the Parana River and the Iguazu River, next to Argentina and Brazil. The three countries are separated by the Paraná River and the Iguazu River. Divided by the Su River, this geographical location is destined to make Dongfang City more prosperous in business and trade. On the other side of Dongfang City are Brazil’s Iguazu Falls and Argentina’s Port Iguazu.”

Therefore, as long as East Africa transports goods to Oriental City in Paraguay, it will have the opportunity to sell these goods to Brazil and Argentina. Of course, this is basically the job of Paraguayans.

Paraguayans acted as second-hand dealers and made a lot of money. This is one of the main reasons for the rapid economic recovery and accelerated development of Asunción and Oriente City.

"Paraguay is the earliest window for trade between East Africa and South America. It has made a great contribution to the export of goods from East Africa and is also a testimony of the friendship between the two countries." Captain Creed said in a rather proud tone.

While talking, Captain Creed's fleet has completed the diversion, and Captain Creed's Caguan has also sailed into the Paraguay River with the other three ships. From here, it also means that the fleet has officially entered Paraguay. the national border with Argentina,

Of course, the fleet did not arrive directly at Asuncion, but stopped at the Argentine port of Formosa, which was the former Paraguayan territory and was established by the Argentines in 1879.

While East African merchant ships are one of Argentina's main sources of imported goods in the Formosa region, the East African Paraguayan trade commercial fleet has only left one merchant ship here.

After all, Formosa is just a small border town in Argentina. Its purchasing power is completely incomparable to Asunción, the capital of Paraguay, and their products are not easy to cash out.

The main export commodities of Argentina and Paraguay are agricultural products such as beef and wheat, and East Africa itself is a major agricultural and animal husbandry country, so East Africa's trade activity within the region is not too high.

However, due to their unique geographical environment, the quality of beef and wheat in Paraguay and Argentina is higher than that in East Africa. In this case, East Africa still has a certain demand for its agricultural products.

The East African commercial fleet exports local beef and other agricultural products directly to Europe, or transports them back to the mainland, thereby earning a small profit.

Soon, the East African Paraguayan commercial fleet arrived in Asunción. As the East African merchant ships entered the port, many Paraguayan businessmen had already stopped and waited.

The main commodities imported from East Africa to Paraguay are textiles, electrical equipment, and automobiles. Of course, the sales volume of the latter two is not very prominent. At this time, automobiles are considered luxury goods, and in Paraguay, which is a small country with a small population, only a very small upper-class population can bite the bullet and consume. , As for the sales of power equipment, it is not much better. After all, Europe, the United States and East Africa have a long way to go to popularize electricity, not to mention fringe countries in South America like Paraguay.

Of course, Paraguay's market is still small despite its small size. During Lopez's period, Paraguay had already laid telegraphs and built railways, so the locals were relatively receptive to new things.

It’s just that the Paraguayan War interrupted Paraguay’s development, including the most “developed” industry in South America. After that, East Africa and Austria-Hungary squeezed into the Paraguayan market.

Today, 40% of Paraguay’s power equipment comes from East Africa, followed by France and Austria-Hungary.

Before the Paraguayan War, Paraguay’s largest trading partner was France. Lopez graduated from France and regarded Napoleon as his idol. After Lopez’s death, the Paraguayan government’s policies also changed, which allowed East Africa to get a ticket.

But it was not East Africa that did business with Paraguay at the beginning, but the Black Xingen Consortium. East Africa did not have this ability at the beginning.

Later, after East Africa’s economic and industrial strength increased, it began to use the trade channels of the Black Xingen Consortium to gradually accumulate the scale of trade with Paraguay.

After entering the 1990s, with the rapid development of East African industry, East African industrial products can now compete with other countries in Paraguay even if they are not sold at a lower price. Among them, power equipment and automobiles are Paraguay's priority options. In these two fields, East African manufacturing is a high-end product and has strong competitiveness in the global market.

Of course, in the 19th century, even the worst countries would not lack markets if they worked hard to develop industry. The industrial production capacity in the 19th century was limited, and the demand for industrial products was very strong.

Although Paraguay is a small country with a small population, its per capita consumption capacity is strong. After the Paraguayan War, in order to quickly restore the national economy and population, Paraguay's economic policy was relaxed, and the original social class was broken because of the war, so ordinary people had many opportunities, and even if they only developed agriculture, their income was considerable.

In addition, the increase in Italian immigrants has provided Paraguay with a rich industrial and commercial population, which has made Paraguay's economic development relatively good today, and even better in the industrial and agricultural fields than before the war.

After all, many Italian immigrants who fled to Paraguay came from Venice, which is relatively developed in Italy, and Venice itself is a region with a strong industrial and commercial atmosphere.