Octavian Import-Export Corporation

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Octavian Import-Export Corporation
Type Semi-Unitary Consortium
Industry Imports and Exports
Founded 161 AL; 1655 AN
Headquarters Arak, Constancia
Products Goods and services from Kalgachia

The Octavian Import-Export Corporation (OIEC) is a consortium of private investors and the Kalgachi government, the latter wielding a controlling stake of the corporation and appointing its chairman. It is headquartered in Los Liberados, with satellite offices in Kalgachia and Nova England.

The corporation serves as a vehicle for trade between the Garden of Kalgachia and the wider world, adapting to perform this function as global conditions permit.

History

The OIEC was created in 1655 AN as a joint venture between the Kalgachi Directorate of Labour and Economic Planning and a syndicate of Nova English businessmen. It was established as a commercial vehicle to facilitate Kalgachi imports from the USSO Common Market (later the Port of Vines) through the Nova English Trading Company, in exchange for the plausibly deniable transfer of Kalgachi military technology to Nova England in the period immediately preceding the War of the Casks. Over time, and in addition to its commercial activities, work for the Corporation would serve as the standard cover for operatives of the Kalgachi government throughout the Eastern Hemisphere of Micras - a fact neither concealed by its employees nor protested by the nations in which it operated, it being a more approachable (and arguably more effective) alternative to the acquired taste that was Kalgachia's diplomatic corps.

As Kalgachia developed a marked preference for insulating its foreign trade activity against the interminable caprice of its larger neighbour Shireroth, the OIEC's experience of markets further afield led it to become the de facto foreign trade agent for all of Kalgachia, an economy whose otherwise-airtight customs regime put the Corporation in a lucrative position of monopolistic privilege.

Until 1668 AN the Corporation's shipping route lay between Port Neil and Gravelbottom via Kasterburg, firstly by chartered airfreight and after 1665 AN, by sea and rail. Changes in the territorial composition of Benacia in 1668 AN, however, removed Kalgachia's border with Kasterburg while introducing a border with a resurgent Batavia. Combined with damage to investor confidence in the Port of Vines arising from Bassarid actions during the collapse of Caputia, the OIEC was compelled to realign its logistical arrangements and diversify its source markets; negotiations through the Iron Company, who in 1665 AN had been the first foreign company contracted to deliver a Kalgachi public works project, resulted in a relocation of the OIEC's main headquarters to the island state of Los Liberados (retaining its Nova English estate as satellite offices) with the understanding that the Iron Company act as the OIEC's principal shipping agent throughout the Batavian Confederation.

Rumours of senior regional representatives of the OIEC defecting to the ESB Group in Raspur, following an unfortunate adjustment of insurance premiums on the company's mercantile risk portfolio, are held to be largely unfounded although the event did herald the Corporation's gradual pivot toward Constancian and Aldurian markets.

The fortunes of the company reached a fresh nadir in 1677 with the ouster of the Yastreb controlling interest from the company's board, a reflection of the downfall of that storied house as a consequence of the Great Uprooting (also known as the Ketherist Replanting) in Kalgachia. This change would have been disruption enough on its own but it was swiftly followed by worse news from Los Liberados. The island nation, whose capital had become the company's main headquarters in 1665, had recovered its independence after a brief and unfortunate period of Florian misrule and now embarked upon a new economic policy in marked contrast to the open and laissez faire policies of the pre-occupation government. The so-called Economía Liberada, was an overtly autarkic system, which no longer viewed foreign investment as a means to finance sustainable development but rather as an exposure to hostile competitors whose only value was to be found in the plundering of their assets. The ultimate manifestation of this new attitude was witnessed in the first act of the new regime, whereby the Liberadosan branch of the Iron Company, the Liberadosan Banana Company, the Octavian Import-Export Corporation and High Speed Los Liberados were all forcibly expropriated by the new government of President Rodrigo Calderón.

Reviled at home and sorely abused abroad, the OIEC's board of governance, suddenly forced to embark upon a peripatetic mode of existence, had endured in short succession a series of body blows that not even the prudent salting away of excess liquidity in amenable jurisdictions in preceding years could even hope to offset. The thought of slinking away back to their former headquarters in Nova England was briefly countenanced, but it was felt that retreating in the face of so flagrant a robbery as that perpetrated by Los Liberados would be an admission of defeat and the presage to a final dissolution. The Board, still mindful of its Euran holdings and the importance of saving face when dealing with the neo-Babkhan potentates of that continent, came to the grim realisation that the only way to survive was to assume an aggressive posture and to strive to regain all that it had lost. Even if they had no realistic prospect of regaining of their Puerto Arcadio holdings, a display of determination in that regard might be enough to deter opportunists in Alduria, Constancia, or Raspur from following suit. One downside to this new policy, particularly with regards to those assets already written off after the recent debacle in Lunaris, was the singular inadequacy of means available to the OIEC. This in turn forced them to make the ominous decision to turn to a competitor with a long standing experience in the field of "aggressive asset recovery" - the Honourable Company otherwise known as the ESB Group. Using a longstanding intermediary, the OIEC made tentative approaches to the Honourable Company's own Board of Directors. The ESB Group's response was sympathetic, seemingly even genuinely so, and the interest it displayed in the proposal thus received was real enough. Predictably however, ESB munificence in regards to the matter would not come without a certain cost, and various additional conditions. There were those amongst the OIEC who muttered ruefully about the consequences of "dancing to the Pecuniary Archon's tune, but they were a minority - for the remainder, estranged from the homeland by the rumoured fate of their friends and comrades in the DTW and KDF, the attitude of the new masters in Oktavyan towards the OIEC (that of being a barely tolerated cashcow) meant that they were on their own and answerable to no-one but themselves for their own survival.

In the face of all objections, ominous threats, and a not inconsiderable amount of pleading, the deal was struck and various forlorn figures began to wend their way, whether by commercial flights or tramp steamers, towards the seedy Constancian port of Arak - there to await the next stage in the evolving drama.

Implicated in the Iron Harbour Papers scandal of 1699.

On 01.I.1703 AN the unwelcome news reached the directors in Arak that the 12% share in the company owned by the estate of the late Mr. Hoderick Scilling had been bought out by the Pentermacht Holdings Corporation, registered in the Warring Islands District. The move, combined with an earlier strong-arming of the survivors of the fall of Nova England, which had seen shareholders divesting in favour of rescue from the Sea-Reavers, which brought the total holdings of the Pentermacht Group within the Corporation to 45% of the total shares. Although the Kalgachi bloc was still strong enough to hold off the threat of a takeover by dubious end parties, there was now blood in the water concerning the long term prospects of the OIEC.

Ownership and Administration

Ownership of the OIEC is shared as follows:

The OIEC Board of Directors is composed as follows:

Products Offered

Decorative Granite
Granite from Benacia's Octavian mountains, of a stern grey-black moderated by subtle golden hues. Shaped into such architectural features as pillar segments, sills and lintels, flooring and appliqué. Ideal for municipal venues or the homes of the affluent. Available rough hewn, smooth matte or polished.

Stalemate Gin
The chosen spirit beverage of the Kalgachia's professional classes. Infused strongly with Litovine Juniper, Stalemate is equally capable of soothing the nervous and reviving the languid. In Kalgachia it is traditionally consumed neat, in small amounts due to its 57.5% alcohol content. It is also popular at table as a digestive aid for cutting through the excessive grease of Kalgachia's national dish, the mutton roast.

Resilient Electrical Components
For all the advantages of miniaturised circuitry and microchips, there will always remain a need for simple systems that are resistant to electrical surge and physical shock, particularly in vital infrastructure. Kalgachia's small but busy electronics industry, operating deep underground, specialises in hand-tunable and tube-based components, universally built to a scale which can be repaired by hand with a soldering iron without the need for excessive anti-static measures or air conditioning. The seamless integration of electrical components with mechanical elements such as clockwork is a Kalgachi speciality rarely seen anywhere else in the world, as are randomised data-generation systems based on irreducably complex physical forces, offering a crucial cryotographic advantage over algorithmic generation which, by its inherent determinism, can always be broken with sufficient supercomputing capacity regardless of complexity.

Gold Jewellery
Kalgachia's gold industry is its most important, underpinning the very national currency itself. At the end of this industry's chain, after the miners and smelters and assayers, are Kalgachia's skilled retinue of goldsmiths; many of whom have a family tradition in the trade stretching back to their legendary ancestors in Shirerithian Goldshire. From these artisans come all manner of rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings and other personal adornments, crafted in varying purities of gold to suit the demands of physical wear and the budget of the consumer.

Medicines
The biomantic Deep Singer race of Benacian history left behind a veritable bounty of engineered flora and bacterial culture, much of which was cultivated for medicinal use. While much of the Deep Singers' expertise is now sadly passed, their Nezeni descendants in Kalgachia continue to utilise a whole host of valuable medicinal preparations - most notably those concerned with telomerase therapy which, although having lost the nuances of biomantic ritual which allowed it to confer biological immortality, nonetheless provide a considerable increase in the humanoid lifespan well into the century range. Anticarcinogens, healing accelerators, sensory enhancers, nervous system regulators and psychotropic elixirs are also available, subject to narcotics control laws in the jurisdiction of delivery.

Woolen Clothing
Insulating garments made with the wool of mountain sheep from Kalgachia's upland pastures. Sweaters, socks, hats, gloves, tunics and greatcoats.

Timber
Workable Octavian Spruce, seasoned and sawn.

Charcoal
High quality for furnaces, forges and the discerning housekeeper.

Paper Goods
For stationery, packaging or sanitary use.

Professional Services
The OIEC can arrange for the skilled consultants of Deep Services, a unitary enterprise in Kalgachia, to visit foreign customers and provide auditing, tax optimisation, management advice, actuarial and analytic services, data exploitation and a whole host of other professional tools to enhance the customer's commercial or bureaucratic edge.

Debt Securities
The OIEC is authorised to sell instances of the DLEP Clearing Credit Facility - a regionally-denominated bridging instrument used by traders awaiting physical payment of Kalgarrand or gold bullion from the Kalgachi government, and a source of fees and interest guaranteed against default by the Reserve Bank of Kalgachia. In addition the Corporation is willing to sell on the rights to debt instruments acquired from any number of other issuers, traders or jurisdictions.

Transport Aircraft
The Floret turboprop transport has something to offer every operator, whether they hail from small developing nations or established powers. Available in standard passenger and airfreight variants or customised for an added fee to such configurations as executive transport, aeromedical evacuation or wildfire fighting.

Products Sought

-Refined metals (primarily steel, tungsten, copper)
-Refined hydrocarbon fuels (primarily ATF)
-Crumb rubber
-Recreational beverages (all types)
-Debt securities
-Freelance journalistic services (for events outside Kalgachia)