Đầu tư khai thác đồn điền cao su ở Đông Dương của các công ty tài chính Pháp trong 30 năm đầu thế kỷ XX: Trường hợp Công ty tài chính cao su

Tóm tắt

French Indochina-particularly Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) and Cambodia-possessed favorable natural conditions for the development of rubber plantations. From the late 19th century, after turning the Indochinese Peninsula into a colony, the French administration and capitalist interests began experimental rubber cultivation and gradually expanded plantation areas to supply raw materials for the metropolitan industry and enrich both French capitalists and the metropole. However, the exploitation of rubber plantations in Indochina only truly accelerated after 1925, thanks to investments from French financial companies and banks - especially the Rubber Financial Company, an international Franco-Belgian financial consortium. From 1910 to 1930, the Rubber Financial Company invested tens of millions of francs and, along with its shareholders, established five plantation companies in Indochina. It came to own fifteen rubber plantations in Cochinchina and Cambodia, including the 18,000-hectare Chup plantation in Cambodia - then the largest in Indochina and the world. The Rubber Financial Company’s investments became a driving force behind the rapid expansion of rubber plantation areas in Indochina. They contributed to the modernization of infrastructure, production techniques, and the increase in rubber’s commercial value, ultimately helping Indochina become one of the world’s four largest centers of rubber production and export. However, the investment process by French capital in general - and by the Rubber Financial Company in particular - into rubber plantations also led to land dispossession among local populations and further impoverished a segment of laborers working on plantations owned by French capitalists.