Rise of the Argentine Empire

After addressing the development issues of the Baron Bank, Saint-Jose purged some corrupt elements within the bank, handing them over to the judicial authorities.

Baron Bank underwent new development and reforms, establishing a retail banking division and enhancing the strategic positioning of Baron Bank's retail banking operations.

The new services target the ordinary Argentinian public and small and medium-sized enterprises, establishing more branches, attracting public deposits, and expanding current consumer loan services.

Baron Bank had already begun piloting consumer loans such as installment payments on a small scale. Now, it is increasing housing loans, car loans, tractor loans, and motorcycle loans, which can not only increase consumption but also expand the market.

Baron Bank has also begun a slow transition and development path. Previously, Baron Bank mainly served Saint-Jose's affiliated companies, developing international business, financing the Blanca City government, and holding company equity on his behalf.

Saint-Jose has always had the idea of merging and splitting Blanca City.

Saint-Jose wants to merge La Pampa Province for many reasons. One of them is that Blanca City needs electricity, food, and water conservancy facilities in addition to population and other factors to achieve such a huge development plan.

Relying on the development of a single city cannot create large-scale industrialization. It is isolated and easily stifled.

Of course, the most important thing is that Blanca City has too small a population. If Blanca City wants to spread out such a large scale and complete certain industries, it must have one or two provinces as backing, and Blanca City's political and economic status cannot be compared with Buenos Aires and La Plata, which is a natural disadvantage.

If there is a province with Blanca City as its core behind it, it can carry out larger-scale policy influence, which is to develop the population and increase immigration.

However, Buenos Aires Province + Buenos Aires City only have more than 10 million people. If a new province cannot be opened up, it will be over sooner or later if it continues to develop like this.

Moreover, Buenos Aires Province is very unfriendly to Blanca City, restricting it everywhere. The provincial government in the remote Blanca City has even said many times that Blanca City has violated provincial laws and the constitution. On the contrary, the two brothers in distress, La Pampa Province and Río Negro Province, have really given great support to Blanca City.

Although these are all facts, Saint-Jose felt uncomfortable. He knew that as Blanca City's economy and exports increased, taxes were paid to the provincial government without any reduction, but it did not support Blanca City's expansion.

Moreover, Blanca City cannot influence the overall development decisions of Buenos Aires Province at all, and now it is even having a negative impact on the development of Blanca City.

In Saint-Jose's view, the only way to save Argentina now is industrialization. Only by exporting a large number of industrial products can the pitiful exchange rate be stabilized. Otherwise, inflation will continue. Relying solely on exporting resources will eventually continue to drag down Argentina's economy.

Because now the export of any materials is priced in either US dollars or British pounds, it is completely a buyer's market, and the pricing power is in the hands of the British and Americans. Once the prices of bulk commodities and resources fall, Argentina will only be able to print more banknotes and fall into a vicious circle.

Over-reliance on the primary product sector for export trade, while the country generally lacks pricing power, will lead to a significant reduction in Argentina's fiscal revenue once commodity prices fall.

The gross national product supported by the sale of raw materials by the primary industry and the sale of services by the tertiary industry is completely different from the industry supported by industrialization in terms of grade and gold content. Moreover, with unrealistic welfare policies, Argentina will slowly be dragged into the abyss.

In addition, Argentina's party system, military閥, and local forces are all major problems. In the past, it relied on Buenos Aires Province as its basic base, but now it should be changed, and a new and more powerful province is needed to check and balance the military forces of Córdoba Province.

Industrialization is completely contrary to the scarce population growth in Blanca City. Some time ago, Buenos Aires even promulgated laws to prevent people from migrating within the province and investigate the illegal merger of Blanca City.

Saint-Jose simply went all the way and thought about splitting Blanca City from Buenos Aires Province, and Perón's resignation was a good opportunity.

Buenos Aires Province is an important core province of the Justicialist Party, and most of the autonomous cities are Justicialist Party members.

The original Blanca City was also like this.

This is a very large cake.

Wealth moves people's hearts.

Now that Argentina's forces are being reshuffled, new parties and forces will inevitably need to take over, and this is the best opportunity.

He even formulated a specific plan for the merger of provinces and cities. This administrative division adjustment involves three provinces, namely Buenos Aires Province, La Pampa Province, and Río Negro Province.

Buenos Aires Province would have 40,000 square kilometers of land south of Bahía Blanca carved out. Of this, 25,000 square kilometers would go to La Pampa Province, divided among 17 municipalities.

The remaining 15,000 square kilometers would go to Río Negro Province, merging with Viedma, the northern provincial capital of Río Negro Province, to establish a new batch of towns. This would simultaneously expand the strength of the two southern provinces and weaken the dominance of Buenos Aires Province in Argentina.

The area of Buenos Aires Province would decrease from 308,000 to 268,000 square kilometers, with little change in population, remaining at 9 million people.

The area of La Pampa Province would increase from 143,000 to 168,000 square kilometers, gaining its own broad access to the sea. Bahía Blanca could also build intra-provincial canals, and the population would increase from 200,000 to 490,000.

The area of Río Negro Province would increase from 203,000 to 218,000 square kilometers, and the population would increase from 410,000 to 430,000.

Although these two southern provinces are somewhat behind Córdoba Province and Santa Fe Province, the two "large population provinces" with 1.5 million people, their development potential is not bad.

In Argentina, the only provinces that can currently rebel and cause trouble are Santa Fe Province and Córdoba Province. Buenos Aires Province, on the other hand, is the stronghold of the Argentine central government. Ensuring overwhelming strength is not enough. If balanced development cannot be achieved, such coups will occur every few years.

As long as there are new industrial provinces acting as catalysts, Argentina's development will improve. After the expansion of La Pampa Province and Río Negro Province, their potential will also be greatly enhanced. If the two provinces jointly develop, attract immigrants, and encourage childbirth, developing into provinces with populations of 5 to 10 million will not be a major problem.

… …

Radical Civic Union Headquarters,

The note submitted by San Jose received the attention of Arturo, the leader of the Radical Civic Union.

He was very interested in splitting up Buenos Aires Province, and he also highly approved of San Jose's offshore oil development and southern oil exploration.

Today, he came specifically to discuss his plan.

"The ocean is a new resource space for human society to develop in the 20th century, and it is a valuable asset to support the continued development of Argentina. The marine economy will become a new pillar of world economic development in the 20th century, and Bahía Blanca is the hope for the development of the marine economy in southern Argentina."

San Jose casually rambled, focusing on the marine economy and international trade to describe the importance of Bahía Blanca's position.

"You need to know that the predicted reserves of offshore oil and natural gas worldwide are 1.4 trillion tons, much more than on land. The vast marine sedimentary basins contain over 150 billion tons of oil, accounting for more than 70% of the world's total reserves, and 14 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The ocean floor is also rich in a large number of polymetallic nodules, cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts, hydrothermal sulfides, and other terrestrial strategic alternative minerals."

San Jose described the vast resources of the ocean, and Arturo nodded in agreement.

"According to statistics, more than 60% of the world's population is concentrated in areas within 100 kilometers of the ocean. This is also the case for countries like France, Britain, and Japan."

"Our country has about 10 million people living around the coast, mainly in the capital and Buenos Aires Province. Other than that, there are very few in other provinces."

"But Argentina currently only has 6 coastal provinces, which is completely inconsistent with our country's 5,000-kilometer coastline. Mexico has 17 coastal states, Brazil has 16 coastal states, and the United States also has 14 coastal states. This is very detrimental to our country's development of the marine economy and foreign trade. Our coastline is even more perfect than theirs…"

From the economy, he moved on to foreign countries, especially Argentina's enemy, Brazil, which also has many coastal states.

Speaking of Brazil, Arturo couldn't help but sit up straight. In recent years, Brazil has developed too well, while Argentina is a mess.

This is something that many people cannot understand.

"Also, Buenos Aires Province has a very long coastline but cannot effectively utilize it, and La Pampa Province is clearly close to the ocean but does not even have an outlet to the sea."

San Jose did not give an answer.

"In fact, south of Río Negro Province, it is no longer suitable for economic development, but we do not have a reasonable development plan. I think it is necessary to split off Bahía Blanca to expand the strength of La Pampa Province and Río Negro Province."

San Jose rambled on, from national righteousness to economic development to dispersing examples, all with some reason, but his bias was very obvious.

"Buenos Aires Province is too large, and many problems will arise if it continues to develop like this. Their energy is focused on the capital, and they are simply unable to develop the south."

Even in Perón's First Five-Year Plan, all projects were basically arranged in Buenos Aires, severely widening the regional gap in Argentina.

This is actually inevitable. People will naturally gather in large cities. Even if the population is sparse, everyone has the right and freedom to pursue a happy life.

"My idea is to cut off the southern end of Buenos Aires Province, especially south of Bahía Blanca."

The coastline division of Buenos Aires Province is very rogue, with almost 1/3 of the country's coastline belonging to it. This is a legacy of history.

"The time has come for change."

San Jose added.