Chapter 436: Eastern Galicia Heavy Industry Zone 1
When the news came back to Bucharest, Edel sighed. Romania's shortage of coal and iron ore had finally been initially solved.
In fact, the government was overjoyed with the exploration of the new territory. A lot of coal, iron, lead, manganese, gold, copper, mineral salt and sulfur minerals were newly discovered in Transylvania. The coal was mainly lignite.
The estimated output is about 2.4 million tons, mainly from scattered small coal mines. The iron ore in this area is also dominated by small iron ores with low reserves.
However, there are good discoveries in gold, mineral salt and sulfur. The Kempeni gold mine in Alba Junia County is the largest discovery in the area. It has a gold reserve of 179 tons, making it the second largest gold mine in Romania.
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In the Transcarpathian region, Edel is also delighted with the newly discovered oil resources in the area. Although it has the same sulfur content as the current Ploiesti oil field, its reserves of up to 150 million tons allow Romania to
In the next 20 to 30 years, it will become an important oil producer in Europe.
The area with the most explored resources at present is Eastern Galicia. The Sokal coal mine was discovered in Lviv; a considerable manganese deposit was discovered in the adjacent Ternopil; and near the Transcarpathian Mountains
In Frankivsk, iron, manganese, nickel, aluminum and other minerals have been found here, among which there are several moderately rich iron ore deposits.
This gives Romania, which has always been short of coal and iron, a lot of peace of mind. At least the steel industry can be said to be finally independent of others.
Therefore, after the discovery of these resources, the government immediately prepared to start development matters. Among them, Eastern Galicia, which has the most abundant resources, the government plans to build it into Romania's first heavy industry base. Although it is not as good as Donetsk-Kharko
Romania’s currently insignificant industrial base is not comparable to the Czech Republic, which has just independently obtained the Austro-Hungarian Bohemian heavy industrial base, and it is not even worthy of carrying shoes for the world-famous Ruhr Heavy Industrial Zone, but this is at least the first Romanian-built industrial base.
A heavy industrial base.
At the Prime Minister's Office, a meeting on the construction of heavy industrial zones is being held here, where various high-ranking government officials discuss investment in heavy industrial zones.
"The resources currently discovered in our newly recovered territory are very rich. The coal, iron, manganese and other mineral reserves currently discovered in Eastern Galicia are not small, and they can be built into our heavy industrial zone. Everyone knows that our country's coal
The scarcity of iron resources has led to the fact that the steel produced in our country mainly comes from Constanta, and the raw materials for the Constanta Steel Plant are shipped from abroad. During the previous war, the steel plant was always in a stage of shortage of raw materials, which also resulted in steel production
Insufficiency has a great impact on our economic development.
Moreover, steel output represents the development of heavy industry and national strength. Needless to say, the United States and the United States have an annual output of tens of millions of tons. We currently have no possibility of comparison. The United Kingdom, France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary are all on the list.
The output is thousands or millions of tons. Even Italy, which is lagging behind, also has millions of tons of steel output. We only have an output of 400,000 tons, which is completely unable to match our identity and cannot give full play to the role of the steel industry in the economy.
At present, the steel needed by many of our factories and enterprises must be imported from abroad. This not only increases their costs, but also reduces their competitiveness. In the long run, the harm to the Romanian economy will also increase. So we must have
Only by building our own heavy industry base can we better promote economic development."
Industry Minister Carlaturi talked at the meeting about the benefits of establishing a heavy industrial zone in Eastern Galicia. The people attending the meeting listened to his speech carefully and took notes from time to time.
After he spoke, Minister of Education Florica asked: "Your Excellency Karaturi is right, we do need such a heavy industry base. So what are the plans of the industrial department to build this heavy industry base?"
Faced with the inquiry from the Minister of Education, Karaturi stated the plans made by the industrial sector. "We plan to build a large-scale coal-iron complex in Lviv, which requires a steel output of 500,000 yuan within three years. Within five years
We will reach a steel output of 800,000 tons and a scale of 1.8 million tons within ten years. Relying on this steel enterprise, we will also build machinery, energy, chemical, materials and other enterprises in Ternopil and Frankovsk. In the short term
To be able to meet domestic demand, the medium-term requirement is to sell to various countries, and the long-term requirement is to have our products available all over the world."
Karaturi talked about the ambitious plan made by his department. The other ministers here were sweating coldly. It's not that the plan is not good, but that it is too good. This involves Romania's financial allocation.
As for the big issue, after all, the government's fiscal revenue only has so much. If more is given here, there will be less for other places.
Sure enough, after Karaturi finished talking about the Ministry of Industry's plan, Education Minister Florica, who currently occupies the largest share of government funding, couldn't sit still.
"Your Excellency Karaturi, how much money do you need for this plan?"
"We have calculated that it will take 2.5 to 3 billion lei (500 million to 600 million U.S. dollars) to build, and it will take ten years to build it. Evenly spread out, it only requires 250 to 300 million lei per year, which will not take up too much.
A lot of money.”
It seems that Karaturi also knows that the capital expenditure required for this plan is too high. However, he laid an ambush here and only mentioned the average annual expenditure, not that most of the expenditure requires investment in the first three years. Because heavy industry has to be invested first.
The investment is very large, and the procurement of major facilities and equipment, road paving, personnel recruitment, etc. all need to be carried out from the beginning.
"This plan is good, but it requires too much money, and private capital has not been considered. I think it is completely possible to raise funds from the private sector for this plan, and the government only needs to be responsible for major steel companies and road construction, and then provide private capital
Some policy support for enterprises is a good thing for both the government and the private sector."
Sure enough, after Karaturi revealed the required costs, there was immediately opposition. This was not an explicit objection, but the use of the current mainstream plan. To promote this heavy industry plan to the private sector, the government only needs to invest in key enterprises.
Just invest.
Karaturi took a look and saw that the speaker was Florica, the Minister of Education who had asked the question before.
He murmured in his mind, would people who engage in education still engage in industry? Then he refuted the other party's remarks unceremoniously. "Your Excellency Florica, the plan you mentioned is currently not suitable for the domestic situation. This plan requires strong private capital."
Yes, but Romania’s current private capital is completely insufficient to do this.”
Florica continued to mention without giving up: "Then we can let them join forces to invest. If one person is not strong enough, we can find several people. And we can give him certain support in terms of policy and finance. I think it will
Someone did this."
"I need to explain something here in advance. This heavy industrial zone is to provide impetus for the Romanian economy, so its profits will not be too high."
Faced with Florica's repeated objections, Karaturi directly pointed out the biggest shortcoming of this plan for private individuals. Without heavy industry with high profits and huge initial investment, this project is not very attractive to private capital unless it is used.
Pricing power is ceded to the market.
It needs to be said here that there are currently two types of heavy industry construction. One is to completely push it to the market like the United States, even the pricing power is pushed to the market; the other is like Germany, where the government builds first and then sells it to private individuals, but the price is fixed.
The power lies with the government. Of these two options, the first is completely useless to Romania, while the second is Caraturi’s idea.
