Rise of the Argentine Empire

Blanca City, within the Free Trade Port and Bonded Zone, enjoyed clear skies, not a cloud in sight, and calm seas.

Saint-Hesse Cohen, a high-ranking official from La Pampa, led his provincial government team as they prepared to travel to Viedma City in the south for a conference.

The group stood on the deck of the ten-thousand-ton passenger vessel "Enterprise," departing south from the bonded area of Blanca Port, a suggestion made by Saint-Hesse.

Argentina's railway system currently faces a huge demand for freight transport. The National Railway Company is preparing to establish large freight train stations in the three coastal cities, and traveling by car would be somewhat troublesome.

The Enterprise, built by the Tres Mares shipyard in La Plata, is an international freighter. He decided to inspect the three coastal cities and opted not to take the smaller, thousand-ton government vessel.

Among the three coastal cities, Otto City, closest to Blanca City, is developing the fastest, followed by Bucato City in the middle.

The Enterprise's first stop was Otto City. Otto City now has a large population and is located on the southern edge of Blanca Bay. Its economy and industry have developed rapidly in the past two years, and it has received substantial financial subsidies from the provincial government, cooperating closely with the southern counties of Blanca City.

Saint-Hesse engaged in in-depth communication with the Otto City government, represented by Mayor Anthony Ostho, encouraging him to work hard and continue to lead Otto City's development forward.

The second stop was Bucato City, located in the middle. Its port construction conditions are also good, possessing a rare inner bay harbor similar to Victoria Harbour, as well as a huge extending peninsula.

In the first quarter of '59, La Pampa Province completed a gross national product of 457 million US dollars, a surge of 50% compared to the first quarter of last year. The import and export volume reversed the decline in March, reaching 97 million US dollars, of which 30% came from the Hong Kong International Free Trade Port, mainly in grain exports and military industrial technology equipment imports.

In the past 3 months, a large number of Asian freighters have departed from Blanca's grain export terminal almost every day, filled with wheat, nearly emptying the granaries of several large grain reserve companies in Blanca City. Nearly 15 million tons of grain have been purchased and transported away.

This year's wheat harvest has been completed. More than a dozen grain merchants from Blanca City are purchasing large quantities of new grain circulating in the Argentine market for new year's reserves and international sales.

La Pampa Province is focusing on grain production, investing no less than 10 million US dollars annually in subsidies to encourage local grain production. At the same time, it encourages the purchase of domestically produced agricultural machinery from La Pampa Province, introducing tax reduction policies, which has led to rapid growth in grain production and a significant expansion of cultivated land area.

The agricultural sector of La Pampa Province accommodates 20% of the employed population of La Pampa Province and has great development potential.

Under the leadership of the Argentine Ministry of Agriculture and the promotion of the National Institute of Agricultural Technology, and with the joint promotion of the agricultural departments of the provinces south of the Pampas grasslands, the scale of corn planting in Argentina has increased again. Various conditions in southern Argentina are suitable for corn planting, which is still Argentina's second largest staple crop after wheat.

April to May is also one of the corn harvesting times, and orders were snapped up early. Argentina will have two more waves of corn grain on the market to meet local needs.

La Pampa Province has also begun to see a number of corn deep-processing manufacturers. The provincial government has specially introduced measures to support corn processing plants, and the corn industrial processing has developed rapidly.

Some established food companies, such as Hérzade, Plarri Grains and Oils, Mininda United Food and Beverage, Molinos Río de la Plata, Milka Nuélas Foods, Marolio Foods, and Nidera Foods, have also joined the corn deep-processing industry. Some foreign companies, such as Cargill, Bunge, and Louis Dreyfus, are also interested in entering the Argentine corn deep-processing industry development.

Currently, corn deep processing is concentrated in the three related fields of alcohol, starch, and grain and oil.

The United States is a major corn producer. Argentina also has a long history of local corn planting. It has only achieved relatively large breakthroughs in the past two years. Although the planting area is not as large as in the 1930s, the unit yield has increased rapidly. Recently, Pampas seed breeding companies have emerged to compete with imported American corn seeds, and fertilizers are also produced in large quantities.

Completely different from Khrushchev's corn campaign, Argentina has the most perfect corn planting conditions in the Southern Hemisphere, while the Soviets only achieved success in corn planting in Ukraine. Brazilians are also not as good as Argentina before fully developing the Amazon Plain of the Brazilian Highlands.

Now, many provinces are not only planting corn, but also high-quality soybeans have begun to be promoted and planted in Argentina, with even faster growth.

In the past few years, under the overall planning of the La Pampa Provincial Government, in addition to the necessary urban and industrial development land reserves, Saint-Hesse nationalized the land of La Pampa Province, reallocating a large amount of cultivated land, and foreign-funded agricultural planting companies that occupied large amounts of land and pastures without development were expelled.

The 5 newly established state-owned agricultural planting companies of the La Pampa Provincial Agricultural Department, as well as 11 private agricultural companies, 24 large-scale joint farms, and 400 medium-sized farms, divided up a large number of undeveloped land in La Pampa Province. Basically, the smallest also has at least a thousand acres, and the largest agricultural planting company, La Pampa State-owned Agricultural Company, controls more than 200,000 acres of farms.

The provincial government makes full use of the advantages of Blanca City's industrialization, newly builds water conservancy projects in La Pampa Province, develops cultivated land on a large scale, introduces improved varieties, produces and uses fertilizers, improves agricultural technology, adopts agricultural machinery operations, and carries out deep processing of agricultural products. Not only will grain production be significantly improved, but mechanized agriculture will also undergo qualitative changes, and grain production is expected to increase by more than 20% next year.

This year, the total grain output of La Pampa Province is expected to exceed 12 million tons, and it has become an important grain producing province in Argentina. According to Saint-Hesse's estimate, as long as water resources are irrigated and fertilizers are used, the grain production potential of La Pampa Province is there.

As it stands now, the La Pampa Provincial Government has achieved certain results with both the consortium route and the state-owned enterprise route, deeply binding itself to the Cohen Consortium and developing state-owned companies on a large scale.

The passenger ship continued south, and rice fields came into view. The most suitable area for planting rice in southern Argentina is the vast plain between the Colorado River and the Negro River, with sufficient irrigation water, and a large-scale reclamation movement is underway, but the scale is difficult to expand too much.

Traditionally, the southern provinces of Argentina rarely developed cultivated land, after all, the fertile Pampas grasslands were already enough to feed Argentina, and there are also areas in the north.

… …

On the fifth day after leaving Blanca City, the La Pampa Province delegation finally arrived in Viedma City.

Viedma City, Carmen District.

At the meeting, Carson Netto, a high-ranking official representing the Rio Negro Provincial Government, expressed his gratitude to La Pampa Province for the various support and assistance provided to Rio Negro Province's work in recent years, and invited Saint-Hesse to visit Viedma City.

High-ranking official Francisco Vincente stated at the meeting that La Pampa Province and Río Negro Province are sister provinces.

San Jose, representing La Pampa Province, announced that it would continue to deepen cooperation with Río Negro Province, starting from Puerto Colorado, building a six-lane highway to Viedma, and a package of economic and industrial development plans, including various infrastructure constructions.

Viedma is located in the southern part of the Yeguas del Este Bay. After merging with Carmen City on the left bank of the Río Negro, the city's scale has more than doubled twenty times, and the development space is getting bigger and bigger.

However, Río Negro Province is still a poor and backward province. A large number of free cities have lost their population to Viedma and La Pampa Province. Viedma's population has grown from less than 30,000 to 140,000, and the entire province's population has increased to 250,000, mostly from Chile. Chile has had serious economic problems in recent years, and military movements occur frequently.

The urban area was originally a large irrigation plain formed by the erosion of the Río Negro, and its unique geographical and natural resources have long made Viedma the economic center of the Río Negro basin.

Viedma is an important port in southern Argentina. Later generations even rumored that the capital would be moved here. Although it is a joke, it reflects from the side that Viedma is definitely not an ordinary city.

Viedma's development is now better than Santa Rosa, the old capital of La Pampa Province. Passenger ships here can navigate the Río Negro to Neuquén Province upstream, and can also transport crude oil.

There is a railway north to Bahía Blanca, and the relationship with La Pampa Province is also very close.

Viedma is already building a new cross-river bridge to connect Carmen District and the urban area. A large-scale terminal has been built in Carmen District, and 10,000-ton ships can directly reach the Port of Carmen. The 7-meter-deep channel is just right.

Carmen District covers an area of approximately 1,540 square kilometers, with a total population of 45,000, mainly new immigrants. It is the first economic zone in Viedma, mainly based on industry.

It is only more than 10 kilometers away from the mouth of the Río Negro, and has great development potential, attracting several large factories.

It's just that the speed of Puerto Colorado City, from a town of 2,000 people, merging several counties, and expanding its population to 150,000 after economic development, is still a bit short. Puerto Colorado City has complete urban construction planning. Mayor Walter Correa once served as San Jose's Minister of Economy and Minister of Finance, leading the industrial planning, construction, and funding of Bahía Blanca. He is an important supporter of San Jose.

After San Jose's promotion, Correa also helped San Jose complete the centralization of the provincial government hall, and was an important contributor.

He was arranged to run for mayor of Puerto Colorado and was successful. He also won a lot of resources for the development of Puerto Colorado and developed the economy according to local conditions.

Puerto Colorado originally had the weakest foundation among the three cities. The total land area is 5,420 square kilometers. Even if three counties are merged, the total population is only more than 10,000.

The new Mayor Correa focused on introducing several large factories from Bahía Blanca. Through the construction of the coastal industrial zone, the number of employees reached 20,000. With families, the population suddenly increased to more than 100,000. He also led the establishment of the Puerto Colorado City Commercial Bank, finally achieving a reversal.

Recently, in addition to cooperating with traditional strong provinces such as Córdoba Province, La Pampa Province has also strengthened cooperation with its fellow sufferers in Patagonia.

Río Negro Province has natural geographical location and conditions similar to La Pampa Province, and has great potential. It is an important target for San Jose to win over.

This time, coming to Viedma also means continuing to increase investment in the South Development. The southern coastal area may explore oil fields like Brazil. This is entirely possible. Argentina's onshore oil resources are not abundant. With the excavation of more than a dozen domestic exploration teams, Argentina's annual oil production is now stable at around 12 million tons, becoming a major oil producing country.

However, it has begun to fail to meet the increasingly large domestic oil demand. The chemical industry represented by Maya Chemical and the increasingly large automobile industry both need a lot of oil and its by-products.

Southern Petroleum, backed by Argentina's National Oil Company and the Cohen Consortium, has begun an unprecedented competition with the powerful Standard Oil of California. Whoever can dig up a large oil field in Patagonia is likely to win the Argentine oil war.

If necessary investment in oil exploration makes progress, Argentina has great potential. Balen Bank has provided Southern Petroleum with a low-interest loan of 60 million US dollars for this purpose, and the four state-owned banks in La Pampa Province have also jointly provided Southern Petroleum with a credit line of 40 million US dollars.

In this way, Southern Petroleum will have sufficient bullets to confront Standard Oil of California and deepen cooperation with the Italian National Oil Company.

Viedma is an important node of Southern Petroleum. The oil pipeline established by Southern Petroleum at a huge cost has not yet been fully loaded.

If Southern Petroleum's refinery is built, Viedma will also become an important refining center in Argentina. It has unique conditions and can obtain oil and gas resources from southern Argentina and Neuquén Province. Abundant rainfall ensures certain navigation conditions for the Río Negro.

If it can be used like the Tennessee River in the United States, the Río Negro will provide huge help for the agricultural development in the southern part of La Pampa Province.

After the meeting, San Jose and Carson and others enjoyed Patagonian roast whole lamb at a Viedma restaurant.

This dish is a favorite of Carson's high-ranking officials. Chef Robert continues to use the most primitive and rough style of Patagonia. These Patagonian mountain goats are transported from the plateau south of Viedma. They eat the local special forage. The meat is delicious, tender, and well-handled. San Jose also recommended Liderma beer to Carson's high-ranking officials.

Liderma beer has become one of the most important beer manufacturers in Argentina, and it is exported abroad. It has also established a brewery in Brazil and participates in carnivals in various South American countries. Viedma will hold a grand carnival party, which will greatly increase the popularity of Liderma beer. San Jose doesn't mind recommending his own brand.

After the meeting, San Jose also visited Viedma for two days.

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The demographic dividend is still very important in the economic development of La Pampa Province in the future.

In 1958, each woman with the right to vote in La Pampa Province gave birth to more than 5 children on average in her lifetime, with a total fertility rate of 5.5, ranking among the top in Argentina, and it also has a large foreign population resource.

From the perspective of age structure, the scale of the working-age population aged 15-64 in La Pampa Province is huge, with a proportion of 62% in 1958, which has stabilized at over 60%.

Using the labor advantage brought about by the ever-increasing population size to undertake international industrial transfer is a feasible way to achieve economic growth. It is also a path of growth in international trade with small investments and quick results. San Jose estimates that the population growth of La Pampa Province will exceed 500,000 again in 1959, and it will be mainly young rural population, accommodating more than 80% of new jobs in Argentina, of which 70% will be solved by Bahía Blanca.

For this reason, San Jose attaches great importance to short-term worker training, so that these young rural people can be competent in factory work. Argentina's basic education is not bad, so it can better adapt to the development of labor-intensive industries.