Société financière des caoutchoucs

Properties2
tagsorganization, company, dutch, colonial, holding, societe-financiere, tamiang, soengei-lipoet, mopoli, batang-ara, medang-ara, semadami, rubber, oliepalm, plantation, foreign-capital
aliasesSociété financière des caoutchoucs, Financial Society of Rubbers, Societe Financiere des Caoutchoucs, SFC, Société Financière (rubber company), Franco-Belgian rubber company

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The Société financière des caoutchoucs — the Financial Society of Rubbers — was the holding company for many Tamiang estates, including Soengei Lipoet and Mopoli with rubber and oil-palm, Batang Ara with rubber, Medang Ara and Semadami with oil-palm and rubber. The Société is the type-case of the holding-company form of organisation that came to dominate the Tamiang planting-sector in the post-war period, whereby a single financial body controlled a portfolio of estates of various crops.

Account from Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh (1923)

The Société Financière des Caoutchoucs was the company founded under Franco-Belgian auspices which opened in Temyang — the sub-department of Atjeh immediately bordering the East Coast of Sumatra — a series of estates for the winning of caoutchouc, coffee, rubber and palm-oil, and whose numbers, taken by author Joh. Langhout from the youngest year-reports, illustrate his chapter “Buitenlandsch kapitaal in Atjeh” (“Foreign capital in Atjeh”).

The estates

  • Soengei Lipoet — for coffee-, caoutchouc- and palm-oil-culture, opened 26 February 1908, when 30 hectares were planted; the planting extended enormously, so that in 1922 a surface of not less than 5,751 hectares had been brought into culture, giving 3,600 coolies an existence. In 1918 the coffee culture was exchanged for that of oil-palm. Production figures, from the latest year-reports: caoutchouc 54,384 KG (1913), 95,297 (1914), 184,302 (1915), 351,255 (1916), 492,687 (1917), 556,174 (1918), 759,191 (1919), 1,332,118 (1920), 1,239,973 (1921), 1,319,800 (1922); oil (from 1918) 78,156 KG (1918), 313,146 (1919), 638,284 (1920), 430,182 (1921), 962,504 (1922). Coffee: 22,000 KG (1913), 20,361 (1914), 85,126 (1915), 191,893 (1916), 206,010 (1917).
  • Batang Ara — established 18 January 1911 at an initial 86 hectares; the planted surface destined for caoutchouc and palm-oil is 1,739 hectares with 742 coolies; production: caoutchouc 128,685 KG (1918), 203,402 (1919), 284,366 (1920), 272,731 (1921), 291,600 (1922); oil 12,910 KG (1919), 146,154 (1920), 136,216 (1921), 395,400 (1922).
  • Semadam — likewise destined for caoutchouc and palm-oil, founded in 1913, at the book’s date over 515 hectares; production: caoutchouc 23,780 KG (1918), 34,791 (1919), 38,759 (1920), 35,471 (1921), 31,600 (1922); oil 31,000 KG (1919), 110,728 (1920), 103,740 (1921), 247,500 (1922).

Context

The company did not stand alone in Temyang: the French company “Palmeraies de Simpang Kanan” opened on 28 April 1914 its estate Simpang Kanan (650 hectares Hevea rubber and some 70 hectares oil-palm); the “Simpang Kiri Cultuurmaatschappij” was founded on 22 March 1913 with some 600 hectares of rubber planting; and the equally foreign-capital “Tengoelan Cultuur Maatschappij” possessed enterprises in the Atjehnese borderland, though without figures available to Langhout (see Foreign capital in Atjeh). The rising estate district was bound into the provincial economy by the tramway reaching Koeala Simpang (1912), Soengei Lipoet (1914) and Besitang (1915–1916).

See Also

Source

Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapter II, ‘Tamiang’, p. 7.

Source

Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), passim; Atjeh Patchouli-Olie, by Ir. W. Spoon (1932), for the Koloniaal Instituut and Handelsmuseum.

Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 188–190.

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