Empire Rising: Spain

After reading the last word of the plan, Prime Minister Prim first closed his eyes, then suddenly opened them, nodding his head while looking at Carlo, and smiled, “Judging solely from this plan, I find no issues, Your Majesty.”

Finding no issues essentially means agreement, but Prime Minister Prim would not express it too bluntly. The specific development of the shipbuilding industry still requires detailed negotiation and joint investment from the government and the royal family. Prime Minister Prim is not going to take on everything, as this would impose a huge financial burden on the government.

“My plan is for the royal family and the government to each invest 15 million Pesseta to acquire certain state-owned and private civilian shipyards that can no longer be saved, and then fully integrate these shipyards, incorporating the shipbuilding workers. Subsequently, a medium-to-large scale military shipyard will be constructed in Valencia, to serve as a substitute for the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard in certain emergencies.

The government will handle the issues of land and shipyard construction, with the government holding a 55% stake in this newly established military shipyard, and the royal family holding 45%. We will collaborate to build this shipyard.

How does Prime Minister Prim feel?” Naturally, some more complex issues can’t be explained by a simple plan and require Carlo to provide more detailed explanations.

Upon hearing this from Carlo, after some thought, Prime Minister Prim finally gave his answer: “15 million Pesseta? This amount of funding is not much. Your Majesty, what about the subsequent encouragement of other state-owned and private shipyards? How should that be done?”

Seeing that Prime Minister Prim did not reject the establishment of a second major military shipyard, Carlo breathed a sigh of relief and began to address Prim’s new question: “The current preliminary plan is to implement certain tax reduction policies for the civilian shipbuilding industry, and the government will organize part of the shipbuilding workforce for training and development.

Additionally, addressing the order issues of civilian shipyards is necessary. Tackling it from multiple angles is the only way to completely resolve the gradual lag and decline of our shipbuilding industry, allowing Spain’s shipbuilding industry to return to the forefront of the world.”

The decline of civilian shipyards is due to many reasons, with the main issues being technological backwardness, reduction in orders, and insufficient workforce.

These three aspects also influence each other. Technological backwardness leads to a reduction in shipyard orders, which in turn affects the revenue of the shipyards, eventually leading to layoffs.

With fewer employees, technological advances become even more impossible. This will cause related technologies in shipyards to stagnate, creating a vicious cycle.

Solving this issue requires external forces to simultaneously address these three major problems in a very strong manner.

If the government and the royal family work together, these three problems can indeed be easily resolved. The lack of workforce can be quickly addressed through training, and the outdated technology can receive technical support. As for the issue of private shipyards lacking orders, they can compete for orders with foreign shipyards once they have enough employees and excellent technology.

Spain still has a certain reputation in the civilian shipbuilding industry. Although it weakened for a period of time, the strong rise of military shipyards has restored some of the reputation of civilian shipyards.

As long as we can strike while the iron is hot, speed up the support and construction of civilian shipyards, there should be no problem in securing some international orders.

The cost of ships for civilian shipyards is not high; after all, these ships do not involve tonnages in the thousands or tens of thousands of tons like the main warships.

There is also no need for overly superior armor protection and large-caliber artillery, which has already saved a lot on costs.

Low cost naturally means low prices. As long as the prices are low, we can find more ship orders from around the world to meet the needs of the shipyards.

The previous attempt to find global buyers for the Rejuvenation-class Ironclad failed, but in the case of civilian ships, finding a few buyers is relatively simple.

For example, Spain’s former colonies in America might not have enough funds to build ironclads, but they do have enough money to build civilian ships.

Besides these countries in America, there are also some European countries where the shipbuilding industry is not very developed, which can become potential clients for Spain’s private shipyards.

There are also Spain’s colonies that need some civilian ships to enhance their transportation capabilities. Maritime transport is an extremely advantageous means of transportation in any era, even in later times.

Although planes are faster, they cannot carry as much cargo, and there are also quite strict cargo load limitations.

Trains also have a speed advantage over transport ships, but trains must run on land, making international transportation quite troublesome.

Large transport ships are different. They travel from one port to another, only needing to pass the sea and replenish supplies at coastal ports.

In later times, a super large transport ship can carry up to tens of thousands of tons of cargo, something that planes would struggle to manage.

Hearing Carlo’s introduction, Prime Minister Prim nodded, estimating the costs that the government would need to bear for this undertaking.

Even just in the shipbuilding sector, the required investment would exceed 50 million Pesseta. If this money were to come solely from the royal family or the government, although it wouldn’t be ruinous, it would clearly impact other areas of development.

But if the royal family and the government each put up half, then the problem could be easily solved. Half of 50 million Pesseta is 25 million Pesseta, less than a third of the annual profit of royal enterprises, and less than one twentieth of the government’s annual revenue.

Forking out this amount is not a heavy burden for either the royal family or the government. If it can effectively promote the development of military and civilian shipbuilding, it would definitely be a good thing.

After thinking for a moment, Prime Minister Prim said, “Your Majesty, I agree with your shipbuilding industry development plan. I will inform the relevant departments to closely cooperate with the actions of the royal family, and will also have the Ministry of Industry come up with specific plans and timeframes for shipyard construction.

The specific matters can be handled by the ministers of various departments and Steward Luo Lun. It is beneficial for Spain, promoting Spain’s development.

Your Majesty, do you have any naming suggestions for this integrated medium-to-large military shipyard?”

Shipyard naming? Carlo shook his head, feeling that such naming duties should best not involve himself.

Seeing Carlo shake his head, Prime Minister Prim continued, “Since it will be located in Valencia, why not call it Valencia State-Owned Military Shipyard.”

For monarchy countries, enterprises controlled by the Kingdom Government are state-owned, and those controlled by the royal family are also state-owned. Enterprises jointly controlled by the Kingdom Government and the royal family are naturally state-owned among state-owned, so calling it a state-owned shipyard is no problem.

Carlo nodded as well, having no objection to such a shipyard naming.

The naming of military shipyards does not need to be overly fancy; simple and clear naming can instead increase the recognition of military shipyards.

Just like Spain’s largest military shipyard, the Royal Guanizuo Shipyard, which is actually a military shipyard established by the royal family in Guanizuo—its naming is equally straightforward.