Economy of Kalgachia

The Kalgarrand and its denominations.

The Economy of Kalgachia has several distinctive features determined by the geography of the country, its natural resources, its geopolitical isolation and the work ethic of its largely-migrant first generation. It tends heavily toward the production and exchange of physical commodities, with most aspects of the service and infrastructure sectors being nationalised or church-owned as was the case in its predecessor state, Minarboria.

Land Ownership and the Primacy of the Church

Although free economic enterprise is nominally permitted in Kalgachia, it falls short of capitalistic excess in large part due to the monopoly on land ownership held by the various organs of Kalgachi state - the vast majority being held by the Church of Kalgachia and its various provincial enterprises which, while often beginning as indepenent businesses, are generally required to submit to church ownership before they are granted land to conduct their operations - real estate as a tradeable asset or source of collateral for private individuals is effectively non-existent. This extends to the ownership of domestic dwellings, occupation of which is tied to the tenant's employment and may be retained post-retirement until death, with any dependants left behind being required to make their own accomodation arrangements. For those who cannot obtain gainful employment and the housing which goes with it, each parish of the Church of Kalgachia runs a poor relief scheme whereby invalids, orphans and similarly worthy destitutes with no other means of support can be housed and fed.

The Church of Kalgachia is responsible for the economic development of its subject parishes, acting on the advice of the Directorate of Labour and Economic Planning (DLEP) which coordinates balanced economic development between the provinces of Kalgachia as a whole. Any government entity may lodge a tithe order with the DLEP for its resourcing, which the Church of Kalgachia is obliged to exact from its subject congregations and businesses. In doing so it invariably skims off an excess of its own, such action at scale combining with its land holdings and wholly-owned enterprises to give the Church by far the greatest concentration of wealth in Kalgachia, and making it the primary entity against which monetary transactions are undertaken.

Important Sectors

Most economic activity in Kalgachia is concerned with agriculture and its associated trades; Kalgachia must feed its population from narrow arable strips in river valleys and hillside terraces with upland sheep and goat pastures, a difficult process to undertake intensively and requiring a sizeable portion of the Kalgachi labour force. Mining is the second most important sector, mainly gold for foreign trade and tungsten for kinetic armaments. Forestry is also a notable sector, occurring mainly in conifer plantations along the lower hills of the Kalgachi frontier which serve a second purpose as cover for defending troops and partisans in the event of an invasion. Kalgachia has also seen the emergence of a textile industry, turning the wool obtained from flocks of mountain sheep into all manner of insulating garments.

Because Kalgachia has no natural reserves of fossil fuel, nor the contacts to import it in any great amount, nor the arable land to spare for biofuel production as was popular in Minarboria, a small industry exists for the production or conversion of battery-powered electric vehicles, charged from Kalgachia's geothermally-powered electrical grid. The dearth of fossil fuel remains a problem, however, especially for military hardware to which almost all of Kalgachia's modest stocks of diesel and aviation fuel are committed. Except for these high-end applications, even the Kalgachi armed forces themselves remain dependent on the pack horse for transportation of goods.

Labour force

The Kalgachi labour force is set to transition away from a motivated first generation of migrants, the fecklessness of their more settled children being compensated by a steady intake of Froyalanish Community Service Workers from Shireroth as payment for various exports. These workers, being of a pariah race widely considered to have forfeited their humanity and enjoying no citizenship rights, can be worked as hard and long as their bodies can physically withstand without social repercussion. Although they consitute an important presence in the field of menial labour, the Froyalanish are projected to be eradicated or assimilated as an identifiable ethnic group within a few generations and the planners of the DLEP are working with their fellow Directorates to develop future alternatives and maintain productivity, such as the aggressive promotion of the ethnic Kalgachi work ethic and general hardiness through such programmes as the Urchagin.

Currency

Kalgachi currency adheres to a very literal form of the gold standard, containing that precious metal physically within all its denominations. The base unit of Kalgachi currency is the Kalgarrand (kgr), a coin of 99.9% fine gold at a weight of 31.1 grams (1 troy ounce), 2mm thickness and a very small diameter of 18.08mm. Owing to its immense value and impractical ductility, the Kalgarrand coin is not often used in everyday commerce and where it is, it is invariably mounted within a protective casing. Denominations of Kalgarrand are minted as an alloy of tin with the appropriate proportion of gold content. The most valuable of these is the Half Kalgarrand, of equal weight in both gold and tin although the lesser density of the latter results in a larger coin of 22.44mm diameter. Coins of lower value retain the Half Kalgarrand's size, but with less gold and more tin as appropriate to their denomination. The differing proportions and densities of the alloyed metals give each coin a unique lustre and weight profile which aids greatly in authentication, although this variance is less discernible in lower denominations and generally requires specialised analysis such as spectrometry.

Although traditionally expressed as a fraction for high-value transactions, sub-Kalgarrand amounts are expressed decimally as Millirand (thousandths of a Kalgarrand) in everyday use.

Gold and Currency Production / Foreign Expenditure Data

Year	Gold mined and smelted	Gold allotted to industrial/aesthetic uses	Gold committed to Strategic Bullion Reserve	Gold exported abroad from Strategic Bullion Reserve	Gold minted into Kalgarrand	Kalgarrand spent abroad from domestic circulation	Kalgarrand released into domestic circulation	Kalgarrand spent abroad from Strategic Currency Reserve	Kalgarrand committed to Strategic Currency Reserve
157 AL	150 tonnes (of a potential 150 tonnes)	30 tonnes (from new gold production)	20 tonnes (from new gold production)	none	100 tonnes totalling 3,215,434 kgr (from new gold production)	492 kgr	492 kgr (from newly minted currency)	2,226 kgr	~3,214,942 kgr (from newly minted currency)
158 AL	150 tonnes (of a potential 150 tonnes)	33 tonnes (from new gold production)	20 tonnes (from new gold production)	none	97 tonnes totalling 3,118,971 kgr (from new gold production)	613 kgr	613 kgr (from newly minted currency)	1,919 kgr	~3,118,358 kgr (from newly minted currency)
159 AL	135 tonnes (of a potential 150 tonnes)	28 tonnes (from new gold production)	20 tonnes (from new gold production)	none	87 tonnes totalling 2,797,427 kgr (from new gold production)	720 kgr	720 kgr (from newly minted currency)	3,233,682 kgr	2,796,707 kgr (from newly minted currency)
160 AL	142 tonnes (of a potential 150 tonnes)	24 tonnes (from new gold production)	20 tonnes (from new gold production)	none	98 tonnes totalling 3,151,125 kgr (from new gold production)	686 kgr	686 kgr (from newly minted currency)	35,973 kgr	3,150,439 kgr (from newly minted currency)

Gold and Currency Stocks (Cumulative)

Year (end of)	Total bullion in Strategic Reserve	Total Kalgachi-assayed bullion abroad	Total Kalgarrand in Strategic Reserve	Total Kalgarrand in domestic circulation	Total Kalgarrand abroad
156 AL	160 tonnes	none	9,703,888 kgr	16,000,000 kgr	19,584 kgr
157 AL	180 tonnes	none	12,916,604 kgr	16,000,000 kgr	22,302 kgr
158 AL	200 tonnes	none	16,033,043 kgr	16,000,000 kgr	24,834 kgr
159 AL	220 tonnes	none	15,596,068 kgr	16,000,000 kgr	3,259,663 kgr
160 AL	240 tonnes	none	18,710,534 kgr	16,000,000 kgr	3,296,322 kgr

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