Chapter 215: Prosperity and Hidden Dangers

Hongsawaddy.

Yangon. The Commodity Trade Center.

Ahaxi, the president of the Persian International Trade Company, had just completed another purchase of 60,000 tons of palm oil.

He walked out of the office provided by the trade center.

Just then, he saw Lai Shengli, the business manager for Zhongliang Group in Hongsawaddy, also leaving the office next door.

"Hello, Manager Lai," Ahaxi said with a smile, greeting him in English.

Lai Shengli smiled back. "President Ahaxi, would you care to get a meal together?"

"Oh? Of course."

The two then left the trade center building together.

The Yangon Commodity Trade Center is a special institution established by the Hongsawaddy government, though it is currently contracted out to the Qingye Group.

All of Hongsawaddy's international import and export trade of bulk commodities must be conducted through the Yangon Commodity Trade Center.

It houses a price ticker hall for domestic and international bulk commodities (including an information desk), a membership application and review office, an import procedures office, an export procedures office, a data management office, exclusive offices for members, exclusive trading rooms for members, and business negotiation rooms (both private and public).

Several hundred major corporations, including Zhongliang Group, Samsung Group, Mitsubishi Corporation, Temasek Investment, Zhengda Company, Fenglong Group, Coca-Cola, Unilever, ABCD, Roche Pharmaceutical, Tata Group, and Ame Company, have all set up offices or branches here.

And their reason for establishing offices or branches in Yangon was, naturally, profit.

Walking out of the members-only office area, they entered the main trading hall.

LED screens, each displaying a different commodity sector, were suspended from brackets above the hall, continuously scrolling with real-time global commodity prices.

The hall was also furnished with over a thousand seats for clients to use as needed.

Lai Shengli glanced at the price ticker for the grain sector.

He noticed that soybean trading prices remained high with no signs of dropping, while rice was currently priced at only 3,300 to 3,500 Jin Yuan per ton.

"Manager Lai, your company has imported a lot of grain this year!"

"Lots of mouths to feed, what can you do?" Lai Shengli replied with a slight smile. The import volumes were impossible to hide; even if Zhongliang didn't release the numbers, Hongsawaddy would publish some of the transaction data.

Ahaxi also showed a hint of resignation. "It's the same in my country. We have no choice but to build up our reserves. Fortunately, Hongsawaddy accepts natural gas and oil as payment."

"I just don't know if Hongsawaddy can withstand the pressure," Lai Shengli sighed, his voice tinged with worry.

Ahaxi knew exactly what he meant. Although Hongsawaddy's trade with various nations was currently booming, its gold-backed currency, the Jin Yuan, was in itself a direct challenge to the US Dollar's hegemony.

If America weren't currently stretched thin by other matters, Hongsawaddy would have likely already been besieged by America and its allies.

Even Persia hadn't been so bold.

Previously, many had assumed that Hongsawaddy's gold-backed currency would likely just be a small-scale experiment limited to its own territory.

But the current situation had exceeded the expectations of many powers.

As Hongsawaddy's list of strong commodities grew and its gold reserves steadily increased, the total value of Jin Yuan in circulation had officially surpassed 500 billion.

Of this, Luzon held approximately 73 billion Jin Yuan in reserves, the Bank of China held 27.3 billion, and Siam had also successively accumulated 13.3 billion.

If this trend continued, Hongsawaddy's Jin Yuan would truly begin to threaten the US Dollar's dominance.

This was the source of Lai Shengli's anxiety.

Once America freed up its hands, it would certainly move to suppress Hongsawaddy with all its might, not even ruling out the possibility of military force.

Currently, much of Hongsawaddy's grain, soybean meal, and corn kernels were being exported to Huaguo, significantly filling the supply gap left by ABCD's soybeans.

In return, light industrial products, machinery, and other equipment manufactured by Huaguoan enterprises were exported to Hongsawaddy in large quantities. The total trade volume between the two sides in the first eight months of the year had already reached 173.6 billion Jin Yuan.

Although Hongsawaddy's balanced trade policy meant that Huaguoan companies didn't accumulate a large trade surplus, at least both sides were able to exchange for the goods they needed.

Half a month ago, Lai Shengli had also represented Zhongliang Group in signing a soybean procurement contract for the following year with Hongsawaddy's three major conglomerates.

They would purchase 15 million tons of genetically modified soybeans from Hongsawaddy's three major conglomerates at a price of 6,250 Jin Yuan per ton, equivalent to 4,500 Huaguo Yuan per ton.

As for whether the three conglomerates could supply such a massive quantity of soybeans and how they would expand their production capacity, this was not really a problem.

After consolidation and development by the three conglomerates, Hongsawaddy now possessed 20.34 million hectares of arable land, equivalent to about 300 million mu. In addition, there were another 10 million hectares of developable wasteland, sparse woodland, and hillside terrain.

The vast majority of this 300 million mu of farmland was used for single-season planting each year.

But with the improvement of various irrigation systems and infrastructure, plus the domestic production of pesticides and fertilizers, it would be possible to achieve two or even three harvests a year in the future.

In other words, if the yield per mu of the North China Plain was used as a baseline, the total potential of Hongsawaddy's arable land, under maximum development, was equivalent to about 1.35 billion mu.

Next year, the three conglomerates planned to fully integrate the current 40 million mu of cornfields and 20 million mu of soybean fields by adopting a one-season-corn, one-season-soybean rotation.

Combined with the genetically modified soybeans from Qingye Group, which could already yield about 360 kilograms per mu, planting one season of soybeans on 60 million mu of land could produce approximately 21 million tons of soybeans.

Excluding the five or six million tons of soybeans used by the three conglomerates themselves, the rest could all be exported to Zhongliang Group.

Of course, this was assuming no natural disasters occurred. The contract between the two parties also included clauses regarding reduced production due to extreme weather.

Fortunately, Hongsawaddy experienced relatively little extreme weather, and typhoons rarely struck the country. As long as they managed the droughts of the dry season properly, there were unlikely to be any major problems.

This was why Lai Shengli was actually more worried about America.

Hongsawaddy might be safe from natural disasters, but not necessarily from man-made ones.

And the power most likely to stir up trouble was, without a doubt, America.

Previously, ABCD had suffered heavy losses on soybeans and rice. They had planned to take advantage of the surge in international grain prices to recoup their losses.

But now, things had gone horribly wrong for them.

The long-term soybean contract they had signed with Luzon forced them to supply five to six million tons of soybeans annually at a low price.

And after the soybean-producing regions in North America were hit by blight, the soybean regions in South America also fell victim. Both of these producing areas were controlled by ABCD, and their overall soybean production had dropped by over 60-70% this year.

Many farms had no choice but to switch to planting corn, peanuts, and wheat instead.

The large-scale reduction in soybean production drove prices up.

But ABCD couldn't be happy about it. Because of that long-term contract with Luzon, they were obligated to supply 5 to 6 million tons of soybeans to Luzon annually at a price of 425 US Dollars per ton (equivalent to 3,800 Jin Yuan).

Meanwhile, soybeans and other grains from Hongsawaddy, along with rice from Siam, had also largely filled the production gap left by ABCD.

The current situation was that global grain prices were running high, but ABCD was only reaping a small fraction of the benefits.

Clearly, the existence of Hongsawaddy and Siam was hindering ABCD's ability to quickly recoup its losses.

Based on Lai Shengli's understanding of those pirates, ABCD would certainly not take this lying down. They wouldn't look for problems within themselves; instead, they would try every means possible to destabilize Hongsawaddy and Siam, or other major grain-exporting countries.

As long as these two major grain-exporting countries ran into trouble, global grain prices would surge again, and ABCD would be able to make a killing and recover its losses.

It was precisely because they foresaw this potential crisis that Zhongliang Group had no choice but to accelerate its grain procurement throughout Southeast Asia, increasing its own reserve limits to cope with future emergencies.