With the end of the Economic Conference, the power industry is listed as the new pillar industry in Austria for the next decade, along with heavy industry.

To this day, the industrial scale of Austria's heavy industry is also astronomical. The main industries involved are: iron and steel, metallurgy, coal, machinery, chemical industry......

In terms of classification, electricity can also be regarded as a kind of heavy industry, and the two sides are very closely linked. It's just that because it has just started and its own industrial scale is very large, it is listed separately.

The number of pillar industries cannot be large, and since power and heavy industry have become new pillar industries, it is natural that some industries have fallen from the "pillar industries".

Undoubtedly, it was the "railway" that was replaced. It's not that railways aren't important, but after more than 20 years of hard work, most of Austria's railways have been built.

The railway industry is beginning to become saturated, and what is needed in this state is steady development, and there is no need for the government to invest too many resources.

In addition to the railways, agricultural development was actually reaching its limits. The growth rate of local agriculture has long since slowed down, and the market for agricultural products is so large that it is not possible to earn more grain if you grow more.

At present, agriculture is growing at a rate similar to that of population, and Austria already accounts for 70 per cent of the international agricultural export market, a share that is almost impossible to grow further.

It will not be long before it will be hit by the resurgence of Russian agricultural products, and it will be very difficult to maintain the current market share.

In order to ensure the healthy development of agriculture, Austrian agriculture has undergone several adjustments, from the initial direct export of agricultural products to the later export of refined agricultural products.

This period also included the promotion of raw silk cultivation and the development of the raw silk industry in Lombardy and Venetia; Viticulture was promoted in the Balkans and the wine industry was launched.

All these practices are artificially lowering grain production in order to ensure food prices. With the outbreak of the Russo-Prussian War, the international market has lost the Russians as a competitor, and life has only improved in recent years.

However, this good old day is coming to an end. The tsarist government was negotiating with the nations to settle the debts it had previously incurred with food.

This is a forced sale, and if the creditors do not accept it, then the debts will never be paid. Needless to say, Franz also knew that Alexander II's plan would be successful.

Mao Xiong's debt is not easy to collect, even if it is discounted, it is better to be able to recover some of it than to lose all his money. Even if governments have opinions, capital will make everyone compromise.

What is in dispute now is nothing more than a matter of interests, and sooner or later it can be negotiated. The diplomatic obstacles to the entry of Russian grain into the international market have now been cleared by Alexander II.

The market is so big, if you sell more, others will naturally sell less. Although there were many food shortages in this era, it was a pity that only Europe had purchasing power.

If it weren't for the Russian Empire's strong enough transportation, which directly dragged down their grain exports, international grain prices would have collapsed immediately.

Franz never doubted the grain production capacity of the Russians. In particular, Alexander II made a big deal and simply overturned the table.

In recent years, Alexander II has been assassinated more than twenty times, which is a testament to how hated his reforms were.

Even the nobles who were no longer bright-headed reacted. It's a pity that the general trend has been achieved, the land has been reclaimed, and it is too late to return it.

The infighting of the tsarist government, Franz had no interest in getting involved. Including Alexander II, who used grain to offset his debts, he was not very optimistic.

No matter how good the policy is, it depends on the implementation, and the domestic grain is not the tsar's. If you want to pay off your debts, you have to collect the grain and transport it out.

Putting aside the financial pressure, someone has to carry out the purchase of grain alone, right? In the face of interests, who can guarantee that these bureaucrats are not moved.

You must know that at the time of the great opening of the wilderness, Alexander II kept such a close eye that there were people who withheld the rations of the peasants, and caused riots, and not only once.

If grain is levied in the form of taxes, it will happen that three or five buckets are overcharged, or a word similar to "fire consumption" will pop up, and it will be legally blown away.

Buying food directly from the people with money, the bureaucrats will also use their hands to get their hands on it. Buy directly from the peasants at a low price, then sell them to the capitalists for profit, and finally leave a little for the tsar.

Unless the tsarist government set a high price, higher than the market price, from which the bureaucracy would benefit greatly, it would not receive much grain.

The plan of the tsarist government could not be realized, but the impact of Russian grain would not be small. As long as it is profitable, the capitalists will still ship the grain out and sell it.

Franz was very suspicious that Alexander II did it on purpose. First, countries should be deceived by using grain to repay debts, so that they can open their markets.

The tsarist government symbolically paid off its debts with a little grain every year, and then asked the capitalists to ship it out and sell it.

Although it seems that the tsarist government did not make a profit, in fact, as long as it sold the unsalable grain in the country, it was a big profit.

Even if the countries knew about the plans of the Russians, they would most likely go with the flow. It is always a good thing for food-importing countries to be able to buy cheap food.

It is only the current grain exporters who are suffering from the real benefits, and Austria is the biggest victim. Politically, there is no confrontation, and economically, Russia and Austria are the first to oppose each other.

Now there is not much room left for Austria to choose, either to take advantage of the advantages in transportation and agricultural technology to directly bring down the price of grain, making it unprofitable for the Russians to export grain.

But to do so is to kill 800 enemies and lose 1,000 yourself. It is important to know that Austria is now the hegemon in the international agricultural export market, and it is able to obtain a lot of benefits every year.

Even if we win the price war and occupy a larger market, we will still have to pay a lot of price because of the decline in grain prices, which will lead to a decline in profits.

The Russians are just barefoot challengers, and if they fail, it's a big deal that they are still the same, and if they succeed, they can get a lot of benefits.

In the original time and space, the Americans played a price war, defeated all competitors, and established the hegemony of grain exports, which was to achieve strategic goals.

Now Austria can't follow suit, and it consumes a lot of financial resources, but the key is that it is the era of colonial empires, and Britain and France have a large number of colonies.

The lack of food in the homeland can also be compensated for from the colonies. Relying on the control of international grain exports will not scare them at all.

Otherwise, Franz would have tinkered with the grain export alliance and enlisted several grain-exporting countries to manipulate the international grain market in order to obtain greater benefits.

Unable to achieve strategic objectives and facing the challenges of many competitors, it can be said that the importance of agriculture decreases after the basic accumulation of capital is completed.

The decline in importance does not mean that it is possible to give up, in fact agriculture is still one of the most important industries in Austria. The industrial chain formed around agricultural production accounts for 38.6% of Austria's GDP.

Although this proportion is decreasing year by year, it still does not detract from its importance. In the face of the challenge of the Russians, industrial adjustment has become imperative.

Austria's agricultural industrial system has been perfected, from the production of agricultural products at the earliest level to the sale of agricultural products, and the added value of products has been almost played to the limit.

For example: from wheat - flour, biscuits, from fruits, vegetables - canned, from grapes - wine, raisins, from potatoes - fries......

In this era, it is all ecological agriculture, there are no chemical fertilizers, pesticide additives, and there is no such thing as green food. The people are too poor, and there is not much market for brand agriculture.

The complete industrial chain increases the ability to resist risks, and when it is impacted, it will have a greater impact on the economy.

The technology content of these industries is very low, and European countries are not completely devoid of agriculture, and they also exist in these industries, but they are limited by raw materials and do not form a scale.

As soon as large quantities of cheap raw materials appeared, the capitalists certainly did not mind expanding production. Even Austria was the largest buyer of Russian grain, and the capitalists were always very unscrupulous in the face of interests.

The low tariff system of Russia and Austria has created opportunities for Austria's industrial and commercial exports, but it has also brought challenges.

In the face of cheap foreign grain, these agricultural product processing enterprises will definitely make choices that are in line with their own interests. The government can't force them in this regard, after all, companies also have to survive.

Today, the profits of agricultural product processing enterprises have also dropped by a large margin, from the initial 30 to 40 percent to the current 10 percent.

This is still gross profit, and the net profit will be even lower. Under the cruel market competition, agricultural product processing enterprises have entered the era of meager profits, relying on volume to make money.

Those with relatively high profits are snack processing enterprises. However, the competition of these companies is more brutal, and almost all snacks on the market have dozens, or even hundreds, of similar products.

The profit of a single piece is good, but the problem is that the sales volume is not large. There are simply not many companies that can make a brand and make huge profits.

Now the technology of Austria's agricultural industry has risen to the top of the times, and it has become a standing guard.

Fortunately, the agricultural products of the Russians are relatively simple, nothing more than potatoes, wheat, corn, and fruits and vegetables will rot before they are shipped out unless they are processed into canned food.

Obviously, the Russian industry has not kept up, and these industries are not developing very well, and the products produced cannot be sold locally, let alone the international market.

At this point, it is imperative for Austria to reorient its agricultural sector, for example, by cutting the output of agricultural products that are clearly vulnerable to the impact and replacing them with other cash crops that are in short supply on the market.

Easier said than done. There are so many farmers in Austria that it is not possible to get them to change their planting habits in a single sentence.

Because the market information is not transparent, even Franz cannot accurately judge what agricultural products will be lacking in the market in the future.

They don't know what is missing in the market, which makes the government's guidance on the cultivation of agricultural products an empty phrase.

Unless it is a planned economy, otherwise, there will be chaos in the cultivation of agricultural products for a long time to come.

This is an unsolvable problem, and agricultural products that are in short supply this year may rot in the ground next year, and no one cares about them.

Farmers are also adjusting the direction of agricultural product planting according to their own judgment, and there are too many people involved to coordinate at all.

Franz had a headache.