Chapter 302 Tobacco Planting

However, the Greek cigarette market has long been controlled by foreign merchants, and it has become a foregone conclusion. Read 520 official website

For example, the city of Thessaloniki, long before the Greeks recovered from the Ottoman Empire, foreign goods such as cigarettes had already flooded the market there.

After the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the commodity market was wide open, and it gradually became a dumping ground for several major powers, and the industrial products of the powers flooded the market of the Ottoman Empire.

As the political and commercial center of the Macedonian region, Thessaloniki is no exception.

After Greece took over Thessaloniki, in order not to arouse opposition from various countries, and considering that Thessaloniki had been recovered for a short time, the Greek government did not dare to cause too much trouble.

Secondly, before the Balkans, there was no area suitable for growing tobacco leaves in the Greek-controlled area. Macedonia, the main tobacco producing area in Greece in later generations, was controlled by Greece in the past two years.

Compared with the mountainous and hilly terrain in southern Greece, Macedonia has more plains and many rivers, which is more suitable for the development of agriculture.

For Greece, if the land in Macedonia can be developed and matured, relying solely on the land in Macedonia, the food produced according to Greece's current population of about 10 million is enough to meet Greece's own needs.

As for the method of improving crop yields by improving planting technology, Constantine thought of synthetic ammonia technology.

One of the main components of the air is nitrogen, and this technology can fix the nitrogen in the air, but this technology has just been developed by the Germans and is absolutely confidential.

This may be the most important technology for mankind in the 20th century.

Before the invention of synthetic ammonia technology, people could attribute hunger to low food productivity, and the public was very familiar with hunger.

But after the emergence of synthetic ammonia technology, it was no longer a technical issue.

Synthetic ammonia can be used not only to produce fertilizers, but also to make explosives.

As a crucial technology like synthetic ammonia, the Germans naturally cherish it and it is almost impossible to transfer it easily.

Now that Macedonia has become a Greek territory and has mastered the production area suitable for growing tobacco, the current situation of Greece's tobacco industry being occupied by foreign companies will also begin to change.

"As far as I know, it's not that no one in Greece is interested in the tobacco business. Cigarettes are daily consumer goods, addictive, with a stable customer base and strong consumer certainty. These conditions can make any businessman excited," Venizelos said after thinking about it.

"It's just a commercial competition. The government can't get involved directly. It's easy to cause diplomatic disputes. Even if the government is willing to support it, it needs the efforts of Greek tobacco companies."

The news that the Purple Robe Foundation and the Royal Education Foundation jointly invested in the cigarette factory was published in newspapers within a day and spread throughout Athens. Venizelos naturally knew about it.

In fact, countless people in the Greek business community are secretly paying attention to the progress of this matter, just waiting to see what kind of sparks will be produced by the collision between the cigarette factory invested and established by the royal family and the foreign capital that occupies the Greek domestic cigarette market.

It's not that no one has tried to produce tobacco for sale in Greece in recent years, but they have been defeated by foreign cigarettes and have no competitiveness at all.

If the royal cigarette factory can really gain a foothold in the market, Greek businessmen will rush in to share a piece of the pie and follow suit.

Venizelos mistakenly thought that Constantine was asking the government for support policies for his business. After all, the royal family had just invested in building a cigarette factory, and now Constantine began to mention policies to support tobacco planting.

For example, he could make some moves on customs issues and increase the import tariffs on foreign cigarettes at Greek customs.

Of course, if such means were used, other countries would retaliate, such as increasing import tariffs on Greek wine and olive oil.

Greece may gain in the cigarette market, but it will pay a price elsewhere, and overall there will be no gains.

Seeing Venizelos's indifferent attitude, Constantine did not force it. After all, Venizelos was right. The revitalization of an industry could not rely solely on the power of the government.

Of course, the power of the government is absolutely indispensable.

The leading industries of any country, behind the seemingly prosperous large companies, reflect the will of the government and the country.

Constantine was just reminding Venizelos.

After the meeting with the Prime Minister, Constantine sent a telegram back to Yakov in Kavala, asking him not to worry about sales. The main task at present is to increase the enthusiasm of local people to grow tobacco, find ways to increase the scale of tobacco planting, and solve the problem of raw material sources for the cigarette factory.

If necessary, it is okay to pay the deposit in advance, as long as it is ensured that the farmers are willing to grow tobacco.

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In the telegraph office in Kavala, Yakov looked at the reply on the paper and sighed. Although he was still worried about the sales of the cigarette factory's products, he could only suppress his doubts. At present, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince only asked the cigarette factory to start production as soon as possible.

On August 29, Yakov and the middleman Lundhart came to the courtyard of the agreed hotel.

Several representatives of the newly established agricultural cooperatives who heard the news in the courtyard surrounded the two of them.

"I heard that if you are willing to grow tobacco leaves, you can pay the deposit in advance. Is it true?"

"How much of a deposit are you willing to pay?"

Everyone's questions were in a mess. Some of them were from newly established agricultural cooperatives, and some were farmers in Kavala, independent of the cooperative.

One of them was Kalia. Since Kalia had learned Greek under the guidance of the church pastor when she was in Eastern Rumelia, and could read and write Greek normally, Kalia was the most educated person in the newly established agricultural cooperative by Bulgarian refugees, so she also came to this consultation meeting.

Lundhart noticed Yakov's frown and quickly stopped everyone and said, "Don't worry, we can negotiate slowly."

Almost all of these people were contacted by Lundhart, so they were still very convinced by him.

"It's like this, my name is Yakov, currently the manager of the Thessaloniki Cigarette Factory. This time I invited you to discuss the tobacco needed by our cigarette factory," Yakov explained the purpose of his visit.

"As long as you are willing to grow tobacco, our company can now pay you a 60% deposit, and the remaining 40% will depend on the quality of the flue-cured tobacco you deliver at the end of the year. If the quality is good, we can increase the purchase price."

After the tobacco leaves are harvested, they need to be baked before being delivered to the cigarette factory. The price of tobacco is determined by the quality of the flue-cured tobacco after baking.

The same fresh tobacco leaves have different baking processes, and the prices after baking vary greatly.