Chapter 310, Interstellar Trade
In the outer space of Yanhuang Star in the Centaur Galaxy, in a huge space port, spaceships are quietly parked. The smallest of these spaceships is at the same level as the Dumbo spaceship. As for the Dumbo spaceship and the Somersault Cloud spaceship, they are also very common.
Among them, there is an elliptical flying saucer-shaped spaceship that is very special and attracts people's attention. This elliptical flying saucer-shaped spaceship is tens of thousands of meters long, more than 4,000 meters wide, nearly 500 meters high, and has a mass of 1 billion tons. It is a huge spaceship of the same weight level as the "Huashan".
On this huge spaceship, the two huge words "Kunlun" tell the world its name. The "Kunlun" spaceship is not a space battleship. There are no powerful attack weapons installed on it, because from the beginning of its design, its function is to conduct interstellar trade.
The "Kunlun" spaceship belongs to the Empire Fuyun Group. In the early stage, only the huge Fuyun Group has the ability and capital to build such a huge spaceship specifically for interstellar trade.
You should know that although the Empire now has a larger "Huangdi" space battleship, there are not many space battleships of the same level as the "Kunlun".
According to tonnage, spaceships and space battleships below 100 million tons can be considered small spacecraft, 100-100 million tons can be considered medium-sized spacecraft, 100-100 billion tons can be considered large spacecraft, and those like private spaceships and space fighters can be called micro spacecraft.
Although the mass of spaceships in the systems such as Dumbo, Dumbo, and Somersault Cloud is different, they are all small spacecraft. "Huashan", "Alps", and "Kunlun" with a mass of 100 million tons can be called medium-sized spacecraft. The mass of the "Huangdi" space battleship exceeds 100 billion tons and can be called a large spacecraft.
The Empire has the "Huangdi" space battleship, so there is no need to worry too much about the safety of the Empire. Therefore, the Empire has built very few medium-sized space battleships. In addition, the Empire's national strength is not too strong now, so there is no need to waste too much resources on military strength.
On the contrary, as the formal establishment of diplomatic relations with the Earth Federation, the Earth side continues to absorb immigrants to the Empire, and the normal trade and economic exchanges between the two sides have become more urgent.
The "Kunlun" spaceship was born. Such a huge spaceship was not designed for war from the beginning, but for interstellar trade, interstellar immigration, etc., so naturally many changes were made in the design.
At this time, the huge "Kunlun" spaceship, on its huge body, the doors of huge warehouses were opened at this time, and the mechanical arms in the space port were busy, and standard interstellar freight containers were constantly transported to the warehouse on the spaceship.
In the interstellar era, spaceships are getting bigger and bigger, and the specifications of interstellar freight containers are also much larger. A standard interstellar freight container is 50 meters long, 20 meters wide, and 10 meters high, just like a huge building, and can hold a lot of freight.
"Hmph!"
The mechanical arms of the space port are busy all the time. One container after another is easily moved to the warehouses and neatly stacked. Every time a warehouse is loaded, there are corresponding equipment in the warehouse to fix these containers to prevent the acceleration and inertia of the spacecraft from scattering.
This is the first time that the Empire and the Earth Federation have formal economic and trade exchanges. The huge warehouses are filled with super-large plasma engines, small plasma engines, small spaceships, private anti-gravity spaceships, virtual machines, biotechnology drugs, etc. produced by the Empire, which are the things that Earthlings dream of.
At the same time, it is natural that there are also local specialties from Yanhuang Star, such as giant pearls and sea clams from the ocean of Yanhuang Star. Even if it is a very common flower or tree on Yanhuang Star, as long as it is made into a potted plant, there will be people on Earth waving their money to buy it.
Of course, the most popular ones are the fruits from Jiuzhou Star, but it is obvious that they have to stop at Jiuzhou Star to load the goods, and it is impossible to transport them to Yanhuang Star to load the goods.
High-tech products and local specialties together form the product list of the first interstellar trade. You can imagine how huge the trade surplus with the Earth Federation will be at that time.
In the "Kunlun" spacecraft, Fang Zheng was accompanying Li Fu to inspect the spacecraft. After all, it was the first time to officially conduct interstellar trade with the Earth Federation. It was also a big event for the entire empire. Li Fu and Fang Zheng also attached great importance to it.
The development of interstellar trade can greatly promote the development of the empire's economy. Compared with the pitiful population of the empire, the billions of people on the earth are a huge market. If this huge market is used to promote the development of the empire's economy, this is a problem that the imperial government and the emperor of the empire are currently discussing.
"Old Fang, judging from the current situation, our trade surplus with the Earth Federation will definitely be huge, and we currently do not accept the Earth Federation using their Earth currency for settlement. We have to think carefully about this issue."
"We should think about it in advance. What we want to get from the Earth Federation must be exchanged with things of equal value."
Li Fu looked at the huge warehouses and the mountains of materials, and thought of a problem. The Earth Federation has a huge demand for the Empire's products, but the Empire does not have much demand for the Earth Federation's products.
In terms of technological products, the Empire does not need any products from the Earth. As for food and other products, the Empire has plenty. There are large areas of land on the two planets for the Empire to grow food. What's more, the Empire now uses space farmland and does not grow food on the interstellar.
So it can be said that the Earth Federation can export very few products to the Empire. It is estimated that only special products such as ceramics, wine, silk, etc. have a market.
We can't just export cars and ships to the Empire. The Empire is already slowly popularizing private anti-gravity spacecraft. These cars and ships are definitely obsolete products. They can only be used as collections if they are shipped here, because there are strict regulations on the roads in the Empire. These gasoline-burning things can't be on the road.
"We have discussed this issue for a long time, and we haven't come up with a good solution."
Hearing Li Fu's words, Fang Zheng frowned with a headache. He and other cabinet ministers have long been aware of this problem, but they have never come up with a good solution.
"We definitely won't accept the currency from the Earth Federation. Their currency is depreciating every year. If we can't spend it, our wealth will continue to evaporate, which is equivalent to giving blood transfusions to the Earth Federation in vain."
"But this economic and trade exchanges cannot be stopped. The huge market of the Earth Federation can greatly promote the development of our empire's economy. It is impossible to say that we will stop eating because of choking."
"Zhong Yun and I have discussed for a long time. In the end, we feel that if there is no other way for the time being, we can only accept the Earth Federation to pay with gold and other precious metals. Otherwise, the Earth Federation has too few means to balance the trade balance."
"It can only be like this. Who said that our own market is still too small."
After listening, Li Fu nodded slightly. Although with the rapid development of the interstellar mining industry, the output of gold has greatly increased and the price of gold has been continuously declining, it is still a precious metal with extremely high value. In addition, gold is also a very important raw material in industry. It is widely used in the industrial field and has a wide range of uses and great effects.
Moreover, before the establishment of the Earth Federation, the countries of the world on Earth had economic and trade exchanges. In addition to using international currencies such as the US dollar for settlement, they sometimes also used gold for trade settlement.
Especially in wars, the currencies issued by countries around the world cannot be exported. If they want to trade internationally, they must use gold for settlement.
Uncle Sam's world's largest gold reserves were obtained by selling arms and weapons to both sides of the war during World War I and World War II. At that time, the Western European countries, which were in dire straits, had to transfer the gold they had plundered from all over the world for hundreds of years to Uncle Sam's hands.
Especially Britain and France, the two old colonial empires, were beaten to a pulp by Germany at that time. They were under great pressure and could only use gold to buy arms continuously, which allowed Uncle Sam to rise rapidly during World War II.
The amount of gold reserves represents a country's ability to settle international currencies and balance trade deficits. On this side of the earth, whether it is at the national level or ordinary people, they all have the habit of collecting gold.
Various gold and silver jewelry made of gold are selling very well. Small yellow croakers made of pure gold are also bought by countless people, and they are regarded as an important means of asset preservation and appreciation.
So whether it is from the national level, industrial use level, or folk level, gold is still acceptable. It is also one of the few things that can be used to balance the trade deficit in the Earth Federation.
There are many things that need to be paid attention to in trade between countries, and this is even more true for interstellar trade. Li Fu, Fang Zheng and others have to consider it a lot.