AECAT: How will the new Almorean-Totzka trade deal affect you?
Totzkan trucks filled with cotton, meat and spice already are
preparing to cross the Yhai steppe into Almorea.
At 1.00 PM on Friday Presidents Alasdair Hallowell and Francisco Améro signed a major trade agreement that looks to reduce Totzka’s energy costs and improve the quality of Totzka’s infrastructure and industrial output by allowing our companies to access high quality Almorean made electrical products and machinery for lower rates. Totzkan trucks filled with cotton, meat and spice already are preparing to cross the Yhai steppe into Almorea. But what does the new Almorean-Totzkan Economic and Trade Agreement (AECAT), also called Almorea-Totzka All-inclusive Free Trade Agreement or ATAFTA in Almorea, mean for the average Totzkan?
Cheaper gas
AECAT commits the Totzkan and Almorean government into building 270 billion Escurita pipeline (or 4 billion Almorean dollars) that will that will traverse the Yhai steppe supplying us with clean tariff free Almorean Oil. When buying petrol for your home’s generator expect to see the price reduced by an average of 336 ES$ per cannister.
Improved Infrastructure
While, in many respects, Almorea and Totzka are developing at the same rates it cannot be denied that Almoreans, in general, enjoy a better quality of life than Totzkans. But thanks to generosity of President Hallowell (or perhaps the hard-selling of Améro) Totzkan companies have been incentivised to purchase high quality Almorean-made electrical goods. This could lead to huge improvements in telecommunications and homebuilding within Totzka.
New employment opportunities
President Améro supposedly put a lot of effort into raising Almorean import quotas on Totzka’s key imports; AECAT commits Almorea into importing 51% of its steel and aluminium, between 35% and 55% of its cattle and spice and 80% of its cotton from Totzka. This will certainly mean Totzkan manufacturers should expect some large contracts arising from the deal and will be looking to recruit more workers as a result. The increased demand for Totzkan agriculture should also see rural landowners looking to hire more farmhands, leading to unemployed city-folk migrating to the countryside and taking the pressure on housing of the south coast cities.
Ilhan and Pamil minorities in Yhaiva sign anti-secession petition
A Segunda Cláusula Movement rally in Tsukh Mina
More than 32,000 Pamil and Ilhans who reside in Yhaiva have signed a petition calling on the Federal Government to defend them in the event of the three Yhai states voting to secede from the Totzkan Union in the upcoming new year’s day referendum. The petition reads “The constitution mandates that the Federal Government must protect the life, identity and culture of all Totzkans. To uphold this the government must allow the 89,000 non-Yhai citizens currently living in Yhaiva to remain citizens of the Totzkan Union if Yhaiva seeks independence”. Adi Bianco Neheres, the writer of the petition, claims that areas in the south of the Yhai state of Terra de Salash, which has a large Ilhan and Pamil presence, should remain within the Union. This anti-secession movement, who call themselves ‘the Segunda Cláusula Movement’, have over 50,000 members (according to Neheres) and argue that in the event of Yhai independence there will be no protection for the minorities living in Yhaiva. A common concern among the movement’s members is that a new Yhai national government will attempt to force minorities out of Yhaiva. Alongside the Segunda Cláusula Movement a more radical fringe group, the ‘Army of 1901’ has emerged and is gaining traction online. This group have already suggested they are willing to use physical force to defend themselves against a potential attack from a post-independence Yhai government.
However, the proposed breaking up of Yhaiva would be an extremely controversial and potential unconstitutional action for the Federal Government to take. The Chirapati administration encouraged Ilhan and Pamil emigration into Yhaiva through the 1980s to work extracting crude bitumen from Yhaiva’s oil sands. As a result, most of Yhaiva’s minorities reside around the region’s most valuable natural resources and any attempt to keep these areas within the Union post-independence would be perceived as theft by the Yhai. In a press conference the new state-president of Terra de Salash, Ado’Illusan Vilo, stated that the Yhai would “resist any attempt to divide Yhaiva or steal it’s natural wealth. Illusan’s party, the Front For The Yhai Nation, recently agreed to support to President Améro’s government within the Comissão Popular in return for Améro guaranteeing a referendum on Yhai independence so it currently seems unlikely that the voice of 32,000 Totzkan citizens will be heard by the government. The petition is to be presented to the Comissão Popular tomorrow.
