Rise of the Argentine Empire

The next morning, upon waking up, thankfully I hadn't caught a cold or anything. Last night, I went to the plaza to see the statue and didn't use an umbrella, getting a little wet in the rain. I need to learn a lesson and not show off, even if my body is strong.

Today, I don't have to go to work, and it's still drizzling outside, perfect for reading the newspapers. Recently, I've been flush with cash, so I subscribed to all the newspapers available in the city to not miss any important information, such as the National Newspaper, Financial Newspaper, Overseas Newspaper, and a bunch of business newspapers.

This morning, the mailman had already placed a thick stack of newspapers at Saint Hesser's doorstep. The neighbor's kitten was wandering outside the door, and the hallway was somewhat dim.

The floor wasn't very damp; it was a cement surface. The male head of the neighboring household was preparing to leave. Saint Hesser greeted him in Persian, and the man politely returned the greeting before hurrying off.

The neighbor's child was sitting there quietly. Saint Hesser gave a bag of biscuits to the adorable child, who said "thank you." Then, several more children suddenly ran out.

Saint Hesser could only go back to his room and get a few more to share with them. They also politely said "thank you." They probably hadn't eaten breakfast. The female head of the household was holding one and came out upon hearing the noise, thanking Saint Hesser. Saint Hesser waved his hand and closed the door.

Picking up the newspapers, he walked to the dining table. This apartment wasn't bad. Although it was quite cheap, with the increasingly large business in the future, a more spacious room would be needed.

"American stock market recovers from initial war concerns."

The war is still ongoing. In two months, the Americans will intervene, and in another four months, New China will join. This is a great anti-aggression war.

In reality, Argentina's relationship with the United States has already eased somewhat, but the Perón government is preparing to return to the "Third Position," which will greatly displease the United States.

Although this war is a great opportunity, Saint Hesser doesn't intend to seek any personal gain from it. He still needs to lie low honestly for now, and it would be best to fleece the Americans.

There wasn't any other important information to pay attention to. He casually glanced at the rest for entertainment.

Currently, Saint Hesser lives in a one-bedroom apartment, which is somewhat cramped. However, the great thing about this one-bedroom is that it has a private bathroom, so Saint Hesser doesn't have a strong desire to move out. He wants to save as much as possible, and most of his money, besides necessary expenses, is invested in expanding the cannery.

Saint Hesser rented this apartment after receiving his military pay. It accompanied him through a period of time, and the rent isn't expensive. Even if he moves to a new place, he probably won't cancel the lease, keeping it as a memento.

He warmed a glass of hot milk, toasted two slices of bread in the toaster, fried an egg, and heated up the leftover pea stew from last night. He ate breakfast while reading the newspaper, thinking that perhaps he should buy some pasta to cook in the future, as cooking rice himself is a bit troublesome.

In the future, when he has money, he'll hire a cook and a cleaner, so he won't have to cook himself.

"The Perón government continues to implement the Five-Year Plan. The urban population in the country has increased significantly, leading to a slight shortage of grain and rising prices. The Perón government is working to stabilize prices. This year's drought has had a significant impact, and our country has imported a large amount of grain from Brazil."

Saint Hesser had indeed noticed this problem. The price of rice in the market had increased by several pesos, and even the price of beer had gone up!

A few days ago, some soldiers celebrating their victory said that their monthly salary could only buy 200 bottles of beer now, compared to 300 bottles a month before.

"Since the new president took office, BHN (National Housing Bank) loan projects have exceeded 50,000. The Second Five-Year Plan will continue to expand in scale, with a target of 300,000 loans."

This is a good thing. After the reform of Argentina's domestic banks, the National Housing Bank gained access to use bank funds for national construction, providing housing loans to workers. Unfortunately, the original scale was small, mainly concentrated in the capital. Now it's expanding nationwide to solve housing problems.

"The National Atomic Energy Commission has been established, and our country is beginning to move towards independent research and development, led by the Physics Department of the University of Buenos Aires."

They're going to develop the bomb! However, Saint Hesser remembers that Argentina spent decades trying to develop it without success. Their level in this area isn't even as good as North Korea's. Of course, their civilian nuclear industry is considered good among developing countries.

Today, he finally saw some good news. He definitely needs to take advantage of this kind of opportunity to fleece them. Inflation and currency devaluation will be severe in the next few years, so the more he gets now, the better. If the cannery wasn't located in Córdoba, Saint Hesser would have wanted to move the factory to the capital.

The capital has the most banks in the country, allowing him to obtain the most loans.

Córdoba is not bad either. Besides the Klein family's Córdoba Commercial Bank, there are also branches of the National Bank of Argentina, the Argentine Agricultural Credit Bank, and other companies.

Since it's something the country is encouraging, he definitely needs to hurry. After quickly finishing the last piece of bread, drinking the remaining milk, and washing the dishes, Saint Hesser put on a suit and went out.

On the way, he slightly refined the plan. This time, he needs to have a complete expansion plan. The factory has also hired a lot of people recently, so he can discuss it with them more.

The cannery and the soda factory need to be registered as one company to get a loan from the bank. With such a low loan interest rate, we definitely need to get more to expand the production line, rent more factory buildings, and hire workers.

Arriving at the factory area, he announced in the office that a meeting would be held in 10 minutes, gathering all the employees in the office. Currently, the staff is fully staffed with more than a dozen people, including the personnel department, finance department, warehousing department, production department, and so on.

In the small meeting room, Saint Hessel spoke slowly and methodically,

"First of all, I want to welcome everyone to join our Prari factory. This meeting is being held because the factory plans to start a new round of expansion. I hope all colleagues will work hard and earn more wages. Now, let me talk about our development goals…" The opening remarks were all empty and useless words.

Saint Hessel paused for a moment and looked at the employees who were listening attentively below, all taking notes seriously. As for whether they were really serious, you could tell by the turtles and chicks everyone was drawing.

"Our factory needs to carry out a new round of recruitment of production employees, and rent the two farms in the northeast corner to transform them into our meat canning factory, producing our Cordoba specialties, beef and pork canned meat. The country is implementing an import substitution policy, which is a great opportunity for us. We must drive the American imported canned goods out of Argentina!" The employees couldn't help but applaud and stopped doodling.

"Although this is very difficult, I believe that as long as we work hard, we will have a chance to succeed. If we don't do this, we will definitely not succeed," he continued with more nonsense.

"For this reason, we will formally register a company. At the same time, we will develop more soda flavors. In addition to orange flavor, we will also develop apple, grape, cola, lemon, and other flavors of soda, with the goal of selling them nationwide. After the company is established, the base salary of all employees will be increased by five percent."

"The finance department and the factory director stay, and the rest can go back to work. Let's discuss how to get more loans and use bank funds to quickly expand our company."

"You can speak freely,"

"Boss, how much is our loan target this time?"

"Five million pesos to start, with no upper limit. Borrow as much as you can."

"The purpose is to expand our factory buildings and improve production equipment,"

Saint Hessel discussed and studied with these factory employees and basically finalized the plan. The legal representative of the new company was set as the factory director Hasson, with 1% of the shares, and Saint Hessel controlled 99%. In the future, those who make outstanding contributions can get some dividend rights.

This meeting basically came to a successful conclusion. Saint Hessel led the meeting but did not appear in person. Hasson was responsible for the loan work and contacted the bank. Li Qingyun was also officially promoted to production supervisor, responsible for the production management of the soda factory, which he did fairly well.

Saint Hessel inspected the cannery, and the output increased again, and some new employees were added.

The Soda Factory No. 2 has already gotten on the right track. The machine debugging is completed, and the trial production is okay. It is preparing for a large-scale mass production stage.

"Boss, these are our new production lines. The first batch of Mirinda soda produced by us has entered various supermarkets and stores in Cordoba, and the feedback is okay."

"Qingyun, thank you for your hard work. I see that you have lost some hair recently. Thank you for your hard work."

"Boss, I'm not working hard. The company pays me such a high salary to let me work."

"Okay, contact me in time if you have any difficulties."

Saint Hessel personally negotiated and rented two farms, and hired workers to open up the walls and unite them. He also contacted intermediaries to see if there were any iron can production lines, filling lines, etc., in order to expand production capacity faster.

…

On the military side, although Saint Hessel was promoted to the rank of warrant officer, he was actually still leading his own team and did not have the authority to be responsible for more people. Of course, his salary increased a bit.

The first five-year plan formulated by President Peron three years ago has reached its fourth year, and Argentina's economic reform has begun a new round of deepening.

The Peron government promoted the import substitution industrialization policy, calling for the use of products produced by domestic industries to replace imported products in order to improve the balance of foreign trade and improve the country's autonomy, and get rid of the control of Britain, Spain, the United States, Italy and other countries over Argentina's trade and economy.

Overall, the Peron government did a good job in the first few years, but he himself had too much desire for power and was essentially a dictator.

The Peron government's first five-year plan one-sidedly demanded industrialization, but was extremely incompetent in rural issues and made no achievements, leading to the current major problems in the Argentine economy. With Argentina's rich and developed agricultural and animal husbandry country, there are actually signs of inflation and shortage of materials.

The introduction of the new policy is good news for Saint Hessel. In the past few years, he only shouted slogans, with a lot of noise and little rain.

The introduction of this new policy has given some small factories in the country some opportunities and a greater chance to grow bigger. Of course, most of them have fallen into the pockets of large groups, such as the two major groups in Argentina, industrial capital and agricultural capital companies.

This five-year plan is modeled after the Soviet Union's first five-year plan, but Argentina's level is not up to par.

The new policy has allowed Saint Hessel to see huge opportunities, not only the devaluation of the currency in the next few years, which has made interest rates ridiculously low, but even borrowing 100 pesos may be equivalent to 50 pesos in a few years. Such a good thing must not be missed.

Moreover, expanding production is also in line with the goals of the Peron government's first five-year plan. Saint Hessel even considered taking the money to hoard gold and sell it in a few years, which would be a sure profit, but he gave up this tempting decision. Industry can revitalize the country.

Of course, this huge loan has a rather坑爹place, that is, it can only purchase domestically produced equipment, which is a more headache.

Because of the US blockade, it is forbidden to export equipment to Argentina. What can be bought on the market are low-level ordinary civilian light industrial equipment, and even these are smuggled.

Argentina's heavy industry is very backward, so the equipment produced is very rough, and the price is also ridiculously high due to cost issues.