Economy
During the French period there was little industry. The economy was an agricultural one based on:
- the cultivation of rice, which grows mainly in the small deltas along the coast and in some districts gives two crops a year.
- fishing, fish salting and the preparation of nước mắm
Silk spinning and weaving were carried on in what the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica called "antiquated lines ...silkworms reared in a desultory fashion". Other crops were tea, tobacco, cotton, cinnamon, precious woods and rubber. Coffee, pepper, sugarcane and jute were also cultivated to a minor extent. The exports comprised tea, raw silk and small quantities of cotton, rice and sugarcane. The imports included rice, iron goods, flour, wine, opium and cotton goods. There were coal mines at Nong Son, near Da Nang, and as well as mining of gold, silver, lead, iron and other metals which occur in the mountains. Trade, which was controlled by the Chinese, was mostly carried out on the sea, with the chief ports being Da Nang and Qui Nhơn, open to European commerce.
Read more about this topic: Annam (French Protectorate)
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)