Chapter 150: Crazy
August 2nd.
Manila city area.
As soon as the sky turned light, many people got up to work.
Mary prepared breakfast for her two children early in the morning, and then rode her bicycle to take her youngest son to the North District No. 1 Primary School.
This school is a private school under the name of Fernando's family, which mainly provides educational support for the children of employees of the Smart People Company, family children, and middle-class families.
Mary's youngest son was able to come here to study thanks to the connections of her eldest daughter Julie.
After sending her youngest son to school, she rode her bicycle to work at Fengrao Supermarket.
Just arrived at the supermarket.
The manager yelled, "Mary, you and Lingdang go change the price tags on the shelves."
"What's increased in price again?" Mary knew the unspoken rule of supermarkets, that is, supermarkets would hurriedly change prices only if prices of things in the market increased; if prices of things in the market dropped, supermarkets would be slow to react.
Picking up a pile of price tags that had just been printed, Mary found that the first things to be affected were rice, flour, soybean oil and palm oil.
My colleague Lingling exclaimed : "The price of rice has risen so much."
The two of them walked and chatted in low voices.
Arriving at the grain and oil section, Mary took out the old price tag from the price tag interlayer and inserted a new price tag.
Medan fragrant rice/56 pesos/kg.
Mindoro glutinous rice/41 pesos/kg.
Austronesian Indica Rice/38 Pesos/Kilogram.
…
The prices of various types of rice have risen to varying degrees, with the average increase reaching about 13%.
In fact, the price increase of grain and oil at Fortune Supermarket is already the smallest in Manila.
Another large grain and oil wholesaler not far from Fengrao Supermarket raised the price to 120%.
As the region with the strongest foreign investment, the most compradors and the most concentrated converts, Manila became the eye of the storm for the soaring food prices in Luzon.
In the warehouse of Jiahai Grain and Oil Trading Company.
The boss, Van Oka Hook, was leading his men to check the fire and waterproof facilities in the warehouse. He had recently imported a large batch of fragrant rice from Siam, more than 20,000 tons.
Now is the peak typhoon season in Luzon, and he is very worried about these rice storage warehouses. Whether he can make a fortune depends on this time.
"Boss, the price of rice in the market has soared by 20% now. Do you want to buy some?" the head of the sales department asked cautiously.
Fan Oka rolled his eyes and said, "Are you crazy? International grain prices are rising steadily. Siam, Annan, and India have all announced that they will increase rice export prices and reduce export volumes. How can you make money by selling now?"
"The boss is wise!" Another lackey quickly flattered him.
Fan Ao Ka patted Mi Cang and said, "Don't sell it until the price doubles, and I will continue to reduce the supply in the stores."
“But what about Fengrao?” The head of the sales department still felt a little uneasy.
"What are you afraid of? Is it illegal for me not to sell rice? This is a free market." Fan Oka waved his hand nonchalantly.
Comprador merchants, convert groups, and foreign-funded enterprises who had the same plan as Fan Oka were rapidly reducing the amount of rice they sold and gradually raising the market price.
Affected by the sharp increase in rice prices, not only food prices have increased in Manila, but also cooking oil, sugar, meat, eggs, and other non-staple foods.
Similarly, in other cities in Luzon, there are signs of rising prices of grain, oil and agricultural products.
Luzon seems to have suddenly returned to the era of the last food crisis, with insufficient internal food production capacity and soaring external food prices.
But this time, will the result be the same as last time?
Through Abundance Supermarket, the Sapiens Company has increased the market supply of grain, but has also started a purchase limit mode, and the prices are still not low.
However, on the market, only Fengrao Supermarket has sufficient food supply, and people can only grit their teeth and buy food at a price that changes every day.
This situation lasted for more than a month.
The time came to September.
The second rice season in Luzon has begun to enter the harvesting period.
At this time, the average price of rice in the Luzon market is stable at 56 pesos per kilogram for indica rice, 58 pesos per kilogram for glutinous rice, and 80 pesos per kilogram for fragrant rice.
This price is almost double what it was before.
And the news is even worse.
Due to the impact of the typhoon, the second-season rice production in Luzon will be reduced by about 12% this year.
At the same time, bad news came from Luzon's rice purchasing negotiations with Siam, Annan and India, as it seemed that there was a huge difference between the two sides on price.
All these unfavorable news have made rice speculators in Manila more confident, and many speculators believe that food prices in Luzon still have room to rise.
Right at this moment.
The rice-grabbing war also began in various parts of Luzon.
Foreign-funded enterprises, comprador merchants, and convert groups began to organize grain collection teams to purchase rice at high prices in rural areas.
Even some agricultural cooperatives under the Homo Sapiens company are "secretly" selling rice to these people.
Inside the cooperative in Macaroon Village.
Fan Oka smiled and said, "Brother Carter, 45,000 pesos per ton is already the highest in Manila. Don't you want to live in the free world?"
After he finished speaking, he took out 500,000 pesos from his wallet and stuffed it into Carter's hand.
Carter calmly put the money away, then replied seriously: "Sure, 45,000 per ton, but only 500 tons."
"Haha, it's a pleasure working with you." Fan Oka smiled proudly.
At this moment, his heart was filled with greed, and he invested all his wealth in buying local rice.
There are many people who think the same as Fan Oka.
In the first half of September, about 75% of the rice in Luzon was harvested, which was also the craziest time for these speculators.
Many of them, like Fan Oka, bet their entire fortunes on the rice and launched a full-scale rice buying spree in Luzon with the Sapiens Company.
Even ABCD gritted their teeth and squeezed out more than one billion US dollars to secretly purchase rice from Luzon.
Obviously, ABCD also wants to make up for their huge losses in the financial .
September 15th.
The average price of rice in Luzon hit a new high of 78 pesos per kilogram, officially breaking the 200% increase mark.
Now, those speculators became even more rampant.
Some people even clamored that the price of rice in Luzon would rise to 100 pesos per kilogram in October and to 150 pesos per kilogram by the end of the year.
Seeing the situation in Luzon, rice producers in Siam, Annan, India and other places became more confident, making the purchasing negotiations between the two sides more difficult.
After all, they all saw that Luzon’s food chips were insufficient. If the five major families had not joined forces to suppress it and continuously release food through the Homo Sapiens Company, the food price in Luzon would have been out of control by now.
Therefore, the outside world is speculating when the five major families will collapse, and that will be the time for them to reap Luzon.
Just as speculators were in a frenzy, shouting that Luzon's grain stocks were about to hit bottom.
In the underground meeting room of Neihu Manor.
Garfield put down the assessment report in his hand: "In other words, all the fish have been hooked?"
"Yes, they have revealed their cards, and now we can play them." Jerry Zhang sneered maliciously.
Xu Yingming also smiled and said: "The second rice harvest in Hongsavadi is good, and it can currently supply us with 7 million tons of rice. The first batch of transport ships transported 500,000 tons of rice and will begin to arrive at the Port of Manila the day after tomorrow."
"Then what are we waiting for? Launch a full-scale counterattack the day after tomorrow. I want to watch their free fall." Garfield joked with some evil taste.
