Gu Kun was running up and down the Shanghai River until the end of the year, and finally he roughly put together the project plan to be planned and the budget loan to be obtained.
In order to catch up with the time gap before the Hong Kong dollar storm hit, Gu Kun did not bother to celebrate the New Year in Shanghai. Instead, he flew back to Lanzhou overnight before the New Year, and then contacted many important people in Malaysia and invited them to come to Lanzhou.
Negotiate.
(Sorry, yesterday’s update was a little late, mainly because some plots were deleted and rewritten. The original plot had a lot more scenes in China where the fox exploited the loopholes and the tiger pretended to be powerful. But after thinking about it, for the sake of safety, it is still not suitable to write too much in China.
.Considering that the turning point will involve a lot of nonsense, I also gave you an extra 500 words per chapter for those two chapters, which is not a waste.
If some things are moved to the Malay side and then deceived, the side performance will be the same. Although I have always written about serious business war strategies, firstly, it does not harm the national interests, and secondly, it does not stuff black money. However, the current environment is very hostile to treacherous and insidious people.
The tolerance for things is a bit low, even if you are "for the sake of justice, you can do whatever it takes".)
After all, Gu Kun's series of crazy infrastructure plans require sincere cooperation from both Lanzhou and Malaysia to be implemented. Otherwise, Gu Kun's wishful thinking alone will not even solve the land issue.
…
January 17, 1998, Saturday, ten days before the Spring Festival.
Kuching city center, Sarawak State Infrastructure Department.
Li Mingze, the deputy governor and director of infrastructure, was waiting anxiously.
Three days ago, he received an invitation from Gu Kun, asking him and Malaysia's richest man Li Jingshen to go to Lanfang to discuss plans. Gu Kun also gave a general explanation of what he wanted to discuss in the invitation, mainly in finance.
During times of crisis and domestic demand shrinking, we should expand infrastructure investment and enhance international cooperation.
Sarawak has a population of 3.5 million, and Kuching City has 800,000 people. Compared with Lanfang, Li Mingze can certainly manage a richer family.
Although Lanfang has risen rapidly in recent years, the population is only one-eighth of Kuching and a few tenths of Sarawak. No matter how rich Gu Kun is, he cannot compete with a man with millions of people.
compared to the overall size of the economy.
After all, "wealthy as a country" is just an exaggerated metaphor. To be more serious, there are very few people who are "rich as a state".
According to the suggestion in the invitation letter, Gu Kun sent a luxury yacht to pick up Li Mingze. As for Malaysia's richest man Li Jingshen, Boss Li, Gu Kun would send a separate special plane to pick him up from Penang and fly directly to Lanfang International Airport.
But Li Ming declined, and secretly asked Boss Li to fly to Kuching first, so that the two sides could meet first, and the Malaysians themselves would first speak the same language to the outside world, and then negotiate with Gu Kun.
"Governor, Boss Li is here."
While Li Mingze was sitting at his desk, lost in thought, his secretary quietly came in to inform him. He quickly jumped up from his swivel chair and walked to the door to greet him.
"It's a great honor for Boss Li Yuzun to visit me. Besides negotiating with Gu Kun this time, I also ask Boss Li to support local construction." Li Mingze said politely with a smile on his face.
"Definitely. Although I have lived in Penang for a long time, Sarawak has always been the focus of our Industrial Oxygen Group's construction over the years."
The visitor's name is Li Jingshen. He is a sixty-year-old man with a three-quarter length hairstyle. His hair is slightly sparse and obviously oiled.
He is now the richest man in Malaysia and the boss of Industrial Oxygen Group.
Strictly speaking, Boss Li is a Chinese rather than an overseas Chinese - his ancestral home is Hu Jian Quanzhou Wing Chun, but his parents fled from Hu Jian to Nanyang when the Japanese invaded China in 1937, and Boss Li was not born until two years after arriving in Nanyang.
In the same way, Governor Li just now is also from Hu Jian.
When talking about the famous families in Hu Jian, the locals would say, "Hu Jian, Chen Lin, and half the world." That is to say, there are so many people with the surname Chen and Lin, that together they can account for half of the people in Hu Jian.
However, this is not obvious among the Hu Jian people who immigrated to Malaysia. On the contrary, the surname Li is particularly strong - among other things, Li Jiapo, which was split from Malay, is a typical Li family world. In Malay and
Li Jiapo, the Chinese surnamed Li are basically a wealthy family that walks sideways.
Although Li Jingshen's company is named "Industrial Oxygen", abbreviated as IOI Group in English, it was actually involved in the sales of oxygen generators and industrial oxygen when it started in the early 1980s.
In the late 1980s, the scope of industrial oxygen business expanded rapidly. First, it expanded comprehensively in the chemical industry, becoming a giant in the Southeast Asian specialty planting and processing industries such as oil palm and latex.
Li Jingshen has successively expanded large natural rubber plantations and oil palm plantations in Borneo. He also has latex and oil refining chemical bases in Penang and Kuching. He is the largest palm oil producer in Southeast Asia and the largest latex producer in Malaysia (
The natural rubber industry is not yet the number one in Southeast Asia, because there are larger companies in Indonesia)
After 1992, Gongyang Group further developed into the fields of real estate and engineering infrastructure. Due to its abundant funds and strong strength, it became the largest real estate developer in Malaysia in just a few years.
Therefore, Boss Li now has a fortune of more than 4 billion U.S. dollars. In recent years, he has often ranked among the top 500 in the Forbes global wealth list - but he has always been hovering in the 400th position.
This time after the Southeast Asian financial crisis, the ringgit exchange rate fell by 25%, which instantly caused Boss Li's wealth to shrink by several percent. He should have temporarily fallen out of the Forbes top 500.
But no matter what, Boss Li's current wealth is still at least two to three times that of Gu Kun. When discussing infrastructure business with Malays, you will definitely not be able to avoid cooperation with Boss Li.
Gu Kun has firmly held the position of the richest man in Lanfang for only more than a year, and his foundation is still shallow. There is still a lot to do to further climb from the richest man in Lanfang to the richest man in Southeast Asia.
When will you be richer than Boss Li, and then you will be considered a little successful?
…
After Governor Li and Boss Li discussed behind closed doors for a long time, they took their yacht and went to Lanfang to talk to Gu Kun.
Of course, Gu Kun couldn't know the details of the collusion between Governor Li and Boss Li, but he didn't care. He felt in his heart that these things were inevitable.
Gu Kun's villa on the main island of Lanfang was not of high quality, and the 360-degree incomparable sea view villa on the Benma Atoll was not high enough to accommodate VIPs worth billions of dollars, so this time he directly chose to say hello to Zhu Youdong and borrow
Went to Zhaoming Palace to receive guests.
After all, Zhaoming Palace is the Lanfang Palace. No matter how it is decorated, the quality is at least guaranteed.
When the yacht arrived at the port, Gu Kun personally went to the dock to greet her, and then sent a convoy to take her back to the palace.
"Governor Li, Boss Li, I have always admired him."
"Thank you for being polite, thank you for meeting me."
In terms of international reputation, Gu Kun is of course much higher than Boss Li, but after all, the other person is quite old and a senior in the business world, so it can only be that Gu Kun has said that he has long admired him, and the other person came to meet him.
Since it was the first time they met, it was difficult to talk about business directly, so Gu Kun invited the other party to have a meal first to catch up with the guests. Even Zhu Youdong attended in person to help receive the guests.
The banquet was nothing more than a variety of top-quality tropical seafood, as well as truffle caviar imported from the North. There is no need to go into details. Anyway, for people with billions of dollars in wealth, what they eat is not important. They have never eaten anything.
After the banquet, Gu Kun clarified the reason for the interview: "The financial crisis is currently in full swing. I invite you two here because I want to initiate several infrastructure projects for cooperation between Lanzhou and Sarawak, so as to promote domestic demand, stimulate investment, and achieve good-neighborly mutual assistance.
, let’s get through the hard times together.”
Lieutenant Governor Li Mingze took a sip of oolong tea and wiped his mouth: "You're welcome, Gu Sheng, feel free to speak frankly. Your prestige in Southeast Asian countries is extraordinary now. Your willingness to cooperate with us is a spiritual blessing in itself."
Great support.”
Everyone is Chinese, so there is no obstacle to speaking Chinese. However, whether it is Governor Li or Boss Li, their normal hair has a Hu Jian accent, or a Wanwan accent, which is far less accurate than Gu Kun's.
Gu Kun nodded: "Then I'm welcome. First of all, I want to talk about the cooperation between the Lanfang Cross-sea Bridge and the water diversion project..."
Gu Kun recounted all the plans he had planned for a long time.
Although they were somewhat mentally prepared and knew that Gu Kun was going to carry out large-scale construction before coming, the Malays were still shocked when they heard the specific plan.
Especially the budget reported by Gu Kun. After all, it is the price after "false invoicing" by the Design Institute of China's Jiaotong University. It sounds very scary. Building a 50-kilometer cross-sea bridge can cost 2.5 billion US dollars / 20 billion yuan.
The amount of investment is simply too exaggerated.
Gu Kun basically triples the price at least to make it scary.
This is not the first time that the Malays have been tricked in this regard. Later, they cooperated with China to build high-speed rail, but were later stopped. If they squeezed a little bit of water, they bargained for 40% of the price. It can only be said that the level of integrity and self-discipline of the Malays is far less than that of China.
.(Gu Kun did not stuff dirty money)
"Aren't you afraid that you won't be able to recoup your investment in these roads and bridges? If you are willing to invest so much money, of course we are happy to see the results. As for using some of our land, it is no problem to give it to you free of charge. After all,
Sarawak is vast and sparsely populated, and your infrastructure is conducive to stimulating local construction. Letting you use the land for free is the proper meaning of the question - why don't we talk about the water price of the water diversion project first."
Governor Li has insisted on the cooperation tone of "the Malays are willing for you to build it, but we will not provide construction funds and will only give you the land for free". It is obviously because he was frightened by Gu Kun's project quotation.
As for selling water, he was very happy and quickly reviewed the historical cases in this regard in his mind.
Gu Kun smiled and said: "That's okay, we will go from easy to difficult. We are willing to follow the treaty model of Li Jiapo buying water from your country and slightly increase the price..."
Governor Li immediately refused: "That won't work! Those despicable people in Lijiapo have been taking advantage of us for decades! Those were calculated in 1961, and 1 cent per ton was too cheap!
In my opinion, we should keep pace with the times and refer to the price of similar international treaties recently - the price of selling eastern Guangdong to Xiangjiang is two Hong Kong dollars per ton, so we should make it cheaper, 1 ringgit per ton."
Gu Kun: "Governor Li is joking. We in Lanzhou are now sparsely populated, and our demand for water is not that big at all. If the current population increases three to five times, it is possible to remain self-sufficient. We don't ask you to buy the water from the Sarawak River.
It also flows into the sea and is wasted.
Li Jiapo asked Johor Bahru. The reason why it is cheap is that the price is only one aspect. West Malaysia has abundant rainfall but does not use much water, which makes the price of natural water cheap. The reason why eastern Guangdong is expensive is because there are 100 million in eastern Guangdong Province.
With a long-term population and a developed economy, it will naturally be more expensive to squeeze out water resources and sell them to Xiangjiang. Water resources in various countries are more expensive as they go to colder places, and tropical rainfall is abundant, so how can it be possible to compare with high prices."
Gu Kun was willing to pay a maximum of two cents per ton of ringgit and would not allow it to be increased unless the Malays shared part of the construction costs.
Governor Li didn't take any advantage. The key was that we were in the midst of a financial crisis, and everything was tight and there was no demand. After a little resistance, Gu Kun exposed him, so he could only agree to this price first, as if it was to negotiate for subsequent projects.