Rise of the Argentine Empire

In less than a year in office at the provincial government, the new high-ranking official, Saint-Hesse, organized a team of capable individuals and completed the financial and economic unification of La Pampa Province, stabilized local financial prices, and created favorable conditions for economic development.

However, with the rapid industrial development of La Pampa and Río Negro provinces in southern Argentina, as well as the super-high-speed growth of the immigrant population, the developing electricity shortage problem has begun to become a major challenge for the La Pampa Provincial Government. Major cities and coastal cities have already begun to experience electricity shortages, which has also affected the economic development of industry.

In terms of population data alone, the increase is astonishing. In July, Bahía Blanca grew from 2.048 million last year to 2.819 million, and the population of La Pampa Province successfully exceeded 4 million, reaching 4.478 million.

Economically, in the past year, the coastal cities of La Pampa Province and the old provincial capital, Santa Rosa, have received substantial assistance and industrial park aid from Bahía Blanca, rapidly developing to a level of self-sufficiency.

In addition to Bahía Blanca, the remaining 13 metropolitan areas in La Pampa Province have also made considerable progress. This new type of administrative hall organization model can rapidly develop the economy.

The electricity problem is not non-existent, but the explosive population growth is indeed unprecedented and extremely rare in Argentine history. The number of new immigrants from foreign countries, mainly from neighboring countries, exceeds 100,000, not including the approximately 200,000 who have not obtained immigration status. These people are mainly scattered in Bahía Blanca and coastal cities, and are unwilling to leave even in winter.

Outdoor construction in La Pampa Province decreases in winter, but orders remain high. The post-World War II baby boom in the United States and Europe is almost 10 years old, and the demand for new populations aged 1-10 is huge. Even taking a small portion of orders is enough to support hundreds of thousands of people.

For example, stationery, toys, milk powder, food, children's clothing, and children's shoes in Bahía Blanca have bucked the trend and risen sharply, with booming orders. Cargo ships cross the Atlantic every day, heading to Western Europe and the United States.

These industries are mostly reverse-customized by trading companies, and some independent factories also carry out foreign trade, becoming a group that cannot be underestimated in Bahía Blanca.

After several years of development, Bahía Blanca has a certain industrial base, and thriving trade allows Argentine businessmen to take advantage of immigration to quickly start businesses. Moreover, the prices of various industrial raw materials are also advantageous. The large influx of population provides cheap labor. Some lucky factories have even received large orders, and in just a few months, the number of employees has expanded from a few people to thousands.

In order to cope with the electricity crisis, revitalize and expand the economy of La Pampa Province, and continue to promote the province's industrialization, in addition to expanding the Cohen Consortium's investment in Southern Power Company, Saint-Hesse used the old method, preparing to establish large-scale state-owned power generation enterprises, using the financial and tax revenue strength of the La Pampa Provincial Government to build new power plants.

In order to promote the development of the electricity industry in La Pampa Province, Saint-Hesse established the Electricity Industry Bureau in the La Pampa Provincial Government, which is in charge of the development of the electricity industry in the 9 cities of La Pampa Province.

The Electricity Industry Bureau promulgated the Electricity Industry Promotion Method to encourage various capital capitals to enter the electricity industry.

In order to strengthen the competitiveness of the La Pampa Provincial State-owned Electric Power Company, Saint-Hesse split a part of the large and complex La Pampa Electric Power Company.

These are Bahía Blanca Electric Power Company, Santa Rosa Electric Power Company, and Colorado Electric Power Company, each responsible for a part of the power generation business. These electric power companies each own several small power plants in the provincial capital, inland, and coastal areas. The state-owned Assets Committee of several municipalities has control over the electric power companies.

The split La Pampa Electric Power Company is still an important power supply company in La Pampa Province, with 12 power plants, and is also responsible for the construction of the La Pampa power grid.

Saint-Hesse also specially established the state-owned Andes Electric Power Development Company to carry out cross-provincial electric power development and construction, especially the construction of hydropower stations in the Andes Mountains.

Since last year, a large part of La Pampa Province's tax revenue has been invested in state-owned enterprises. A large number of province-owned state-owned enterprises have been established and appeared as a result, and their number and scale have become larger and larger. Even a large number of state-owned enterprises have been established by borrowing from banks. The number and scale of province-owned state-owned enterprises have exceeded those of Bahía Blanca city-owned state-owned enterprises.

Including issuing construction bonds, bank loans, attracting private investment, obtaining loans from American and European bank consortia, and raising funds from the new Presidential Palace, Saint-Hesse raised funds through multiple channels to build state-owned enterprises.

Since the beginning of this year, more than 30 large province-owned state-owned enterprises and factories have been established, which is more than the number established in the entire last year.

The employment scale of these large factories ranges from hundreds to thousands or tens of thousands, providing a large number of jobs for Bahía Blanca and coastal cities.

These state-owned companies cooperate with established scientific research institutes, some become foundries for the Cohen Consortium, and some have strong scientific research capabilities. Most of them have good market competitiveness and do not simply rely on administrative power.

These state-owned enterprises are involved in many industries such as textiles, steel, machinery processing, clothing, tobacco, construction machinery, auto parts, household appliances, shipbuilding, military weapons, building materials, petroleum, chemicals, medicine, import and export trade, etc. They can often have rich returns within a few months to a year of completion.

The scale and number of province-owned state-owned companies have exceeded those of Bahía Blanca city-owned state-owned enterprises, and the technology is also more advanced. They are mainly distributed in the Ahrihi, Bosca, and Médanos districts, which are crucial to the development of these three districts. An important state-owned factory can often drive the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people.

In addition to the Médanos United Steel Company, the larger ones include La Pampa Oil Company, which has rapidly increased its employees from hundreds to more than 10,000, and has also opened up oil transportation routes. The initial orders mainly came from Southern Oil Company and Maya Chemical and Argentine National Petroleum. The first two belong to the Cohen Consortium, and the remaining one is Saint-Hesse's line, which makes the orders of La Pampa Oil Company stable, and the invested funds are also easier to recover.

The orders and production equipment of the La Pampa Shipyard are directly utilizing those of the Pralari Shipyard. International trade is developing rapidly, and the demand for ships is huge. In addition to Sanhai Shipbuilding, Pralari International has also ordered equipment from two shipyards in Italy, which has been dismantled and returned to China. One of them was ordered for the La Pampa Shipyard, and even the advance payment was borne by Pralari International.

After several years of development, Sanhai Shipbuilding has become the first shipbuilding company in Argentina, introducing a large number of Spanish and Italian shipbuilding technologies and establishing in-depth cooperation with the Spanish National Shipyard.

Sanhai Shipbuilding Altamira Shipyard is the largest, now has 1 50,000-ton berth, 1 50,000-ton repair and shipbuilding dock, can repair and build all kinds of ships under 50,000 deadweight tons, now annual shipbuilding is 500,000 deadweight tons, ship repair is more than 30 ships, and a new 100,000-ton dock is also under construction.

Sanhai Shipbuilding La Plata Shipyard mainly focuses on bulk carriers and fishing boats under 30,000 tons, and the annual shipbuilding volume is also 200,000 deadweight tons.

La Pampa Shipyard and Bahía Blanca Shipyard under Pralari International have just started, and their business is still mainly based on orders from Sanhai Shipbuilding, but they can also obtain some international orders.

Under the instructions of San Jose, the La Pampa Provincial Market Administration relaxed the difficulty of company and factory registration at the beginning of the year. Companies can be registered in as little as three days, completing a one-stop service for bank account opening. This greatly reduced the cost of registering new companies and is considered a first in Argentina.

The province's tax incentives are also constantly being strengthened. San Jose has also opened up many provincial and municipal markets and industrial zones, offering preferential registration to new companies. This year, the number of companies and factories in La Pampa province has directly tripled, from 8,000 last year to more than 30,000. Among them, Blanca City also climbed directly from 7,000 to 26,000, making La Pampa province the most economically active place in Argentina.

Blanca City has also given birth to a strong township enterprise economy, developing many labor-intensive enterprises. Because of the advanced transportation infrastructure construction, almost every coastal county in Blanca Bay now has docks and highways. As a ring-shaped city, Blanca City has a similar distance from the nearest village to the docks as from the east and west urban areas to the docks. Therefore, many large factories are more willing to build in suburban counties where land prices are cheaper, which is also conducive to rapid expansion.

Although most of the companies employ basically no more than 5 people, the economic vitality has indeed strengthened a lot. Through competition, many potential companies have also emerged.

Many new companies in Blanca City are located outside the east and west districts because the operating costs are lower here, and the transportation is even more convenient, making it easy to hire workers.

Powerful families from various provinces of Argentina have also settled in Blanca City, and large and small city halls have also begun to choose to do business with La Pampa province. La Pampa province needs a lot of resources for industrial development, with huge demand for minerals, electricity, raw materials, oil, and even water resources.

In addition to this province, San Jose organized a meeting of senior officials from several southern provinces and established the Patagonia Electricity Committee to conduct research on long-distance power transmission, especially high-voltage power transmission networks, with the help of the La Pampa power grid.

The power industry, as an independent industrial sector, is not easy to develop. Currently, the United States, Europe, and the Soviet Union are the most developed.

San Jose hopes to no longer build thermal power plants with a capacity of hundreds of thousands of kilowatts, but rather large thermal power plants with a capacity of more than one million kilowatts.

In addition to the five existing power companies and one power grid company, San Jose also established a Power Research Institute, which is under the jurisdiction of the Power Industry Bureau.

San Jose is still focusing on Italy, not only because of relatively pleasant historical cooperation, but also because Italy's power industry is at an advanced level in the world.

As for the United States, Cohen Electric will reach a certain degree of technology procurement with Westinghouse Electric and General Electric, secretly transporting it to Argentina.

The La Pampa Province power industry implements a plan that combines hydropower and thermal power. Andes Electric Company and Santa Rosa Electric Company mainly develop hydropower, while Blanca Electric and Colorado Electric mainly develop thermal power, and Southern Electric develops both hydropower and thermal power simultaneously.

Most of the power equipment comes from imports, resulting in artificially high power costs in La Pampa Province.

As a result, the state-owned Pampas Electrical Engineering Company and the Blue Harbor Electrical Company, which belongs to the Cohen Consortium, were established one after another, separately researching and developing equipment such as cables, transformers, and generators. Using some resources from American Enco Electric and importing power generation and transmission technology from Italy, they began the development of the electrical industry.

At the same time, five universities, namely La Pampa University of Science and Technology, La Pampa University of Technology, La Pampa Industrial University, National Southern University, and Blanca University (formerly Blanca Advanced Vocational School), each established departments of electromechanical engineering to cultivate and reserve talents for the development of the power industry in La Pampa Province.

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After the Alta District in Blanca City was divided into three, the large Posca District was also divided into two. The degree of centralization in Blanca City has increased, and densely populated areas such as the East and West Districts have also begun to divert to the new urban areas, making the population distribution of the entire city more reasonable.

The number of administrative districts under the jurisdiction of Blanca City has increased, while the total area of 6924 square kilometers remains unchanged.

The number of districts under its jurisdiction increased from 6 to 10, namely Alta District, East and West Districts, Agrelique District, Posca District, San Martin District, Medanos District, Arias District, and Calderon District.

In August, the 6 iron-smelting blast furnaces of the Medanos United Steel Company were successfully ignited, and the remaining 9 blast furnaces are also about to be completed. This is the most mature blast furnace technology in Argentina, and it also represents another step in the increase in steel production in Blanca City.

Medanos County has also developed rapidly and has been changed to a district by Blanca City. Medanos District has become the largest district in Blanca City, even larger than half of the six urban areas. The population has also rapidly increased from less than 30,000 to 300,000, with more than 40,000 steel mill workers alone.

Their chimneys are spewing out grayish-white and black gases, making the sky increasingly hazy.

The number of counties under the jurisdiction of Blanca City has changed from 8 to 6. Many counties have also developed very quickly, especially the two counties on the southern coast of Medanos District, whose populations have also increased to more than 100,000 respectively.

Blanca City has proposed the Blanca City Expansion Plan, formally merging the Qiao Yike City, which has a jurisdiction area of 5010 square kilometers, with Blanca City to form a truly Greater Blanca City.

Qiao Yike City is an important part of Greater Blanca City. To date, it has a population of only 60,000 and is composed of 5 outer town-level cities in Blanca City. Originally, Blanca City planned to merge slowly, but it was opposed by the previous provincial government. At the end of last year, the 5 towns merged into Qiao Yike City, which is completely sparsely populated and economically backward.

Qiao Yike City is the tail end of La Pampa Province. Blanca City is quite generous to other cities, but it is more restrained in the development of Qiao Yike City, and there is relatively little assistance, although Blanca City has also spilled over some resources in the past.

The source of economy is the premise of independent development, and this is actually what San Jose meant.

The better the economic development, the less you want to merge with other cities. Qiao Yike City is San Jose's final plan for Blanca City. The area after the merger of the two cities is 11,934 square kilometers, exceeding most Argentine cities and also having a large enough subsequent development base.

On August 12, the city merger officially began. After the merger, the number of cities in La Pampa Province decreased from 14 to 13, and the number of counties in Blanca City increased from 6 to 11.

In order to strengthen financial support, the Provincial Government newly established the La Pampa Economic Development Bank and the La Pampa Agricultural Development Bank.

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Because of the various propaganda of the church, San Jose instructed a provincial senator to propose abolishing the Archdiocese of Blanca Port, encourage the transformation of the church, and prohibit the establishment of the Diocese of Santa Rosa.

The church in Blanca Port had become much more honest before San Jose officially took office as mayor, and it also took the opportunity to launch some beneficial propaganda and became a pioneer in San Jose's encouragement of childbirth.