The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Of course, I am interested in any highway currently under construction in the Mainland. However, with limited funds, I can only choose part of it." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

From a future perspective, it is not possible for all domestic highways to achieve high returns, or some of them can only be said to not lose money. From an investment perspective, they are still not very cost-effective, unless they are really There is no good investment direction, and it is good to choose. However, it is obviously impossible for Chen Zhiwen's capital. Just investing in some mainland real estate will also benefit a lot.

However, the construction of expressways in the Mainland is not done casually, but based on actual demand. Where the demand is high, it will be built first. And the places with high demand are naturally first- and second-tier cities. Those third- and fourth-tier cities, even There are not many factories, so why build a highway? Only when the overall economy takes off in more than ten or twenty years will construction become meaningful.

In the 1980s, most of the highways that were built were the ones with the highest profits in the future, because they were all connected to first-tier cities or quasi-first-tier cities. Linking such cities would naturally bring high profits. Chen Zhiwen also participated in several such highways. There were relatively few high-speed highways left until the 1990s. The Shanghai-Wuhan Expressway was one of them. The reason why this highway was not approved in the 1980s was because of its relationship with the Yangtze River water transport. In any case, the volume cannot compare with the Yangtze River water transport. In addition, in the 1980s, national funds were tight, and there were many highways to be built in other places, so naturally no project was approved. Even a few decades ago, no east-west railway project was proposed here.

However, the biggest disadvantage of water transportation is that the efficiency is too low. Too low efficiency may cause greater losses. Especially when the economies along the river begin to develop, there will be an urgent need for high-speed land transportation. Therefore, in Historically, it was also in 1992 that the front-end Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway project was established.

This time the state directly initiated the Shanghai-Wuhan Expressway project, probably because of Chen Zhiwen’s early proposal.

"It's good that Mr. Chen is interested. Because of the economic development needs of Su Province, there is an urgent need for an expressway from Jinling to Shanghai. Originally, Su Province wanted to build it by itself, but in this case, it may have to wait for two years. When preparing funds, the central government also considered that Chen Sheng once proposed such a plan, so it would be better to entrust this expressway to Mr. Chen." Director Wang said with a smile: "However, the central government, Jiangsu Province and Shanghai City also hope that Mr. Chen’s investment can first take into account the actual needs of society and build a section of the expressway from Jinling to Shanghai first.”

"Of course this is not a problem. I will definitely build the eastern expressway first." Chen Zhiwen readily agreed. In fact, the core section of the expressway from Shanghai to Hankou is the rear section of the road in Jiangsu Province. This will be the most important part of the entire China. It is the most central section of the country's highway system, both for cargo transportation and personnel travel. Whenever there are festivals in later generations, this section will be the most congested, also because it is the place with the largest concentration of people in the east and west, and it is also the north-south direction. A section where several highways intersect.

Going west from Jinling is an ordinary expressway. You won't lose money on investment, but you won't make a lot of money either. However, this is basically a road in one direction. It makes no sense that you only want to build the one that makes money, and don't care about the rest. This is also impossible.

"That's good, because this first phase is in Jiangsu Province and Shanghai, so you can just negotiate the details with the local governments later. As for the issue of financial cooperation, it is also your internal negotiation. If there are any problems, please Just report it to the central government." Director Wang also said that local highways are basically decided by the local government. The central government will decide what projects to build based on the national strategic development needs. After the project is approved, it will basically be handed over to local management. , at most I will understand or review it every once in a while.

"No problem. In terms of funds, if Jiangsu Province lacks funds, I can also arrange for banks in Hong Kong to lend money. There will be no funding problems." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile. Large-scale infrastructure projects can easily cost tens of billions, but in fact, as long as there is profit Most of the hope is provided by banks. It's just easier said than done. For banks, such loans are also very risky. Once something goes wrong, even HSBC will have to live with it, so a large mortgage will inevitably be needed, and this is very important for banks. For Chen Zhiwen, it's much simpler. His three words are often enough.

"Okay, I also hope that I can see the construction of this expressway start one day earlier." Director Wang said with a smile.

The construction of the Shanghai-Wuhan Expressway is actually just one of Hutchison Whampoa's large-scale investments in domestic expressways. After entering the 1990s, the domestic economy is about to enter an era of rapid development, and "if you want to get rich, build roads first", as the ancient saying goes The truth is eternal. If the traffic is not good, all businesses will stop. Therefore, both ports and highways will enter a stage of rapid development.

However, no matter how big Hutchison Whampoa is, even if it has a lot of profits returned from Japan, it is impossible to invest in too many high-speed projects. Firstly, it is not allowed. It is impossible for everyone to do it. Secondly, large-scale domestic development requires funds. There are too many places to invest in, and there is no need to invest in highways with low profit returns. After all, projects like the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Expressway, Guangdong-Shenzhen Expressway, and Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway are still very rare.

Relatively speaking, there are still many places where the impact and rate of return of investment far exceed that of highway projects, such as another large infrastructure port, or when an area becomes a special zone and needs to be economically developed.

In such a place, there was Shenhai City in the 1980s, and the Chen family also participated a lot. However, after all, Shenhai City was just an experimental field, and it was basically a county-level city, so it could not accommodate too much funding. In the early days, Chen Zhiwen also used This benefit was given to his old man. It was not until 1985 that Chen Zhiwen arranged for Land to participate again.

No matter how fast Shenhai City develops, it will still not be able to compare with other super cities in the past ten years. For example, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, even Shenhai City may not be able to compare with it by 2020.

In the 1990s, the Shanghai Stock Exchange had several golden opportunities for investment. One was the development of the Pudong port, and the other was the establishment of the Pudong Special Economic Zone.

After staying in Yanjing for a few days, Chen Zhiwen met with some department executives, but they did not discuss any actual investment, just some future expectations, etc. After that, he took his own plane and came to Shanghai.

Compared with Yanjing City, which has not yet opened its basic real estate business to foreign investment, Shanghai City is at the forefront of the entire mainland.

As early as 1987, the Shanghai Municipality conducted the first auction of commercial land in the country except Shenhai City. A piece of land in Puxi was sold for more than 4 million US dollars, setting a historical precedent.

This makes money much faster than working hard in factory industry...

In the following years, several land parcels were auctioned in succession, but the scale was not very large. Many foreign real estate companies, including Hong Kong investors, were also waiting.

Unexpectedly, the restrictions on bidding for land in Puxi, which they chose to be optimistic about, have not been lifted. On the contrary, Pudong next door has ushered in the development of a special zone.

"I would rather have a bed in Puxi than an apartment in Pudong." This sentence is a reflection of Shanghai's economy throughout the 1980s. Unlike later generations where skyscrapers were everywhere, Pudong now is basically villages and farmland. There are only a few factories scattered along the Yangtze River. The largest one is the instant noodle factory invested by Master Kong here.

Throughout the 1980s, hundreds of thousands of people from Pudong flowed to Puxi every morning. They were locals in Pudong. Since there were no jobs locally, they could only go to Puxi to seek life. They would leave early and return late, which made the traffic in Shanghai very difficult. It brought great pressure. In the earliest days, Hu Yingxiang deliberately built a bridge across the Huangpu River. The main purpose was to alleviate this traffic pressure.

But as Puxi's economy gets better and better, there are more and more jobs and wages, which has led to more people wanting to work in Puxi. In this case, even building a few more bridges will be useless. In order to alleviate this problem, the Shanghai Municipal Government wants many companies to open offices or factories in Pudong, but very few respond. Even if Master Kong's factory has tens of thousands of employees, it is insignificant in the face of such a base.

Now, the central government issued an order in April this year that Pudong will be developed as a special economic zone. Such a policy is obviously encouraging. A large number of state-owned enterprises have been invited to enter Pudong, and some foreign companies have also expressed interest. After all, the development of Deep Sea City is a lesson learned from the past. Not many people took it seriously in the early days, and now it is too late to regret it.

In the future investment planning of the mainland, Pudong New Area can be said to be the top priority, because only this place and Shenhai City were blank in the 1990s, and could accommodate a large amount of capital investment.

In terms of rate of return, it is not necessarily comparable to some special investment projects. It can accommodate enough funds and has a large enough influence. For large capital, if you invest 10,000 yuan to earn one million, the rate of return is 100 times, but Basically, I have no interest, and I am too lazy to waste this time. However, investing 10 billion to earn 3 billion, with a return rate of only 30%, is enough to make any big capital jealous.

When Chen Zhiwen came here, the Pudong Development Zone naturally sent Director Lin, who was responsible for investment promotion, to accompany him, and senior officials from Hutchison Land also came here.

"There are no signs of development here yet!" Chen Zhiwen asked after arriving in Pudong.

They are located in Pudong near the Huangpu River. A few miles away is Master Kong's factory. The original choice of this place was actually for the development of today's Pudong.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of development will definitely start from the Yangtze River, because the waterway is smooth, transportation is convenient, and it is close to Puxi. After the buildings along the Yangtze River are built, other parts of Pudong will be developed from the outside inward.

Today is July, almost three months since the central government issued the policy. It stands to reason that even if the houses are not built so quickly, there should at least be some movement!

"Mr. Chen, the district committee has actually had relevant ideas and early development plans. However, based on Hong Kong's experience, the buildings next to the Huangpu River must be built at once to avoid the 20-year-old situation in Hong Kong. The situation after demolition." Director Lin explained with a smile: "It's just that if you want to build it all at once, you will definitely need a lot of funds. This will still put a lot of pressure on the finances, so it has not been completely determined yet."

"The central government should also have funds for such a large-scale development, right? And can't it be borrowed from banks?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"The central government's financial allocation is not large. We also need to use it wisely, mainly on transportation and a few landmark buildings. As for bank loans, that is also considered by the investing state-owned enterprises. The government should not borrow too much." Director Lin explained .

"That's true." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

If real estate control in Shanghai is relaxed now, it will indeed be very similar to the situation in Hong Kong in the 1950s. In that era, because land prices were not expensive, the cost of building a house was relatively high, and the higher the house, the more expensive it was. Levels are increasing, so if there were more than 20 levels back then, it was considered very high.

In that era, capitalists would not build super high-rise buildings because it was not cost-effective. With the same building area, it would be more cost-effective for me to buy more land and build several buildings. If Chen Zhiwen was in that era, he would definitely do the same. When land prices rise in the future, It is obviously more cost-effective to own more land. Unless it is a company like Land, which chooses a prime location in Central, and it has a good reputation, it is keen to build high-rise buildings.

If the Shanghai Stock Exchange goes the way of Hong Kong, then few people will be willing to build super high-rise buildings in Pudong today. Of course, the main force in the development of Pudong in China is state-owned enterprises, but the money of state-owned enterprises does not fall from the sky, even if they have national tasks , but there is still a certain degree of freedom. After all, at the national level, it is impossible to rigidly stipulate who builds what kind of buildings, because it is not necessary. Shanghai and various state-owned enterprises are all biological sons. The old father can arrange for everyone to cooperate. As for how to cooperate, that is an internal matter.

"Mr. Chen, are you interested in building several super buildings in Pudong?" Director Lin asked again.

"Does the government need to determine the various data shapes of the built buildings?" Chen Zhiwen asked rhetorically.

"Yes, but we don't have any big restrictions. As long as it meets our basic requirements, complies with building regulations, and doesn't fit in with the surrounding environment, there won't be any big problems!" Director Lin said.

"What about quantity?" Chen Zhiwen asked.

"Of course the more the better, Chen Sheng, there is a lot of land in Pudong, even on the Huangpu River." Director Lin said with a smile.

"Then I hope to build a super shopping mall here, and then build a large five-star hotel and several office buildings near it." Chen Zhiwen pointed in a direction and said. (End of chapter)