Economy of Kalgachia
The Economy of Kalgachia has several distinctive features determined by the geography of the country, its natural resources, its geopolitical isolation and the cultivated work ethic of its population. 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 character of the Kalgachi labour force has, to date, progressed through three distinct stages:
- 143-150 AL: The first generation of motivated Minarborian immigrants, overwhelmingly engaged in the development of infrastructure.
- 150-161 AL: Large influxes of Froyalanish Community Service Workers, imported from Shireroth after their societal downfall and mass bondage there. Mainly engaged in agriculture and raw material extraction.
- 161 AL-present: Emancipation of Froyalanish labour and the introduction of a minimum wage. Transition toward the aggressively promoted work ethic of the prevailing ethnic Kalgachi, pedagogically conditioned by the Urchagin and similar initiatives. Engaged in all areas of the Kalgachi economy, allowing the hardest workers to attain substantial social mobility.
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[1] | 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[2] | 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[3] | 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[4] | 2,796,707 kgr (from newly minted currency) |
| 160 AL[5] | 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) |
| 161 AL[6] | 50 tonnes (of a potential 150 tonnes) |
35 tonnes (from new gold production) |
15 tonnes (from new gold production) |
2 tonnes | none | 706 kgr | 706 kgr (from Strategic Currency Reserve) |
33,812 kgr | none |
| 162 AL[7] | 35 tonnes (of a potential 150 tonnes) |
31 tonnes (from new gold production) |
4 tonnes (from new gold production) |
1 tonne | none | 881 kgr | 881 kgr (from Strategic Currency Reserve) |
34,876 kgr | none |
| 163 AL[8] | 95 tonnes (of a potential 150 tonnes) |
25 tonnes (from new gold production) |
5 tonnes (from new gold production) |
none | 65 tonnes totalling 2,090,032 kgr (from new gold production)[9] |
795 kgr | 2,000,795 kgr (from Strategic Currency Reserve) |
34,618 kgr | 2,090,032 kgr (from newly minted currency) |
| 164 AL[10] | 32 tonnes (of a potential 150 tonnes) |
30 tonnes (from new gold production) |
2 tonnes (from new gold production) |
4 tonnes | none | 814 kgr | 814 kgr (from Strategic Currency Reserve) |
33,047 kgr | none |
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[11] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| 161 AL | 252 tonnes | 2 tonnes | 18,676,016 kgr | 16,000,000 kgr | 3,330,840 kgr |
| 162 AL | 255 tonnes | 3 tonnes | 18,640,249 kgr | 16,000,000 kgr | 3,366,597 kgr |
| 163 AL | 260 tonnes | 3 tonnes | 18,694,868 kgr | 18,000,000 kgr | 3,402,010 kgr |
| 164 AL | 258 tonnes | 7 tonnes | 18,661,007 kgr | 18,000,000 kgr | 3,435,871 kgr |
________________________________________________
- ^ October 25th to November 2nd, 2017.
- ^ November 3rd to November 12th, 2017.
- ^ November 13th to November 22nd, 2017.
- ^ This spike in expenditure caused by the cash purchase of 32 Jan-van-Gent VII Model transport aircraft from Jingdao.
- ^ November 23rd to December 2nd, 2017.
- ^ December 3rd to December 12th, 2017.
- ^ December 13th to December 22nd, 2017.
- ^ December 23rd, 2017 to January 1st, 2018.
- ^ Kalgarrand circulation increased to account for the emancipation of 2 million Froyalanish labourers from bondage and their entry into the wage/consumer economy.
- ^ January 2nd to January 11th, 2018.
- ^ Owing to the inflation of Kalgachi bullion stocks over time, conversion of Kalgarrand into foreign currency is best subjected to a temporal modifier in accordance with the varying flow of time between the Anno Libertatis and other calendars (conversion of Kalgarrand to currencies of nations operating under Ab Nortone, for instance, requiring the sum total of other variables determining the rate of exchange to be divided by three for a real-terms figure. Conversion of Kalgarrand to currencies of nations operating in uncompressed Earth time would require the rate to be divided by 36.5. The Reserve Bank of Kalgachia cannot be held responsible for inflationary events, currency crashes or bankruptcies arising from the renunciation of this advice nor, conversely, the gaming of global currency markets for personal profit by the exploitation of temporal haemorrhaging.)
