The Wealth Empire Crossing the Hong Kong

Chapter 622 Currency Pegged
He didn't care about how the top British officials would communicate with Indonesia and the Philippines. In the evening, Li Jianhui attended the reception hosted by Bolkiah, the Sultan and Prime Minister of Brunei.

Although Brunei's population is only about [-], as a sovereign country, there are quite a few departments. Tonight's reception was extremely lively.

Of course, apart from celebrating Brunei's official becoming a sovereign state tonight, there is another purpose, which is to attract investment.

Brunei's economy now has two pillar industries, one is the oil exploration joint venture with the Xinjian Department (now under the management of Nanhua Petrochemical), and the other is fishery.

This time Brunei hopes to introduce some enterprises to further process oil, not just to become a crude oil exporter.

The other is to form a large-scale industrialization of fishery, and at the same time hope to attract some deep-processing enterprises to create greater value.

In terms of oil, Nanhua Petrochemical has no plan to establish a deep processing industry in Brunei. In its positioning, Brunei is a crude oil production place, and the main processing is still in Malaysia.

However, this time Nanhua Petrochemical did not act as a spectator, but instead focused on natural gas. The joint venture company entered the natural gas mining industry, and at the same time provided a natural gas liquefaction base, mainly providing liquefied natural gas for Xiangjiang and Baodao.

In addition, on behalf of Xiangjiang Airlines, Zhang Yijun has reached a cooperation with Brunei International Airport. Within this year, routes from Xiangjiang, Taoyuan, Tokyo, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Johor Bahru, and London to Brunei will be opened to boost the development of Brunei’s tourism industry. .

The Whampoa Shipping Group is not just going through the motions. It is a joint venture with the Brunei government to build an international port to boost Brunei's economic development.

Lane Crawford also made a move to build a Lane Crawford shopping center in the central city of Brunei to provide assistance to Brunei's service industry.

Xinhui Hotel also invested 10 billion Hong Kong dollars to build a Xinhui Hotel in the central city of Brunei.

Donghua Communications Group and the Brunei government have established a joint venture to establish a Brunei Communications Company, striving to enable Brunei citizens to enjoy the convenience brought by technological development in their own country next year.

Li Jianhui and the others made such a large-scale investment this time, naturally they are not doing charity. Brunei has a currency, the Brunei dollar.

After several years of friendly cooperation between the Xinjian Department and Brunei, coupled with this large-scale investment, the Brunei dollar will be pegged to the Hong Kong dollar, and a 1:1 exchange will be implemented.

In this regard, Li Jianhui helped Xiangjiang obviously grab the cakes of England and Sin Chew. In Brunei's plan, there are four options, which are pegged to the US dollar, the Sin Chew dollar, and the Hong Kong dollar.

The performance of the U.S. dollar for more than a year was directly crossed out by Brunei. The Sin Chew economy has been suppressed by Xiangjiang in the past few years. In addition, Brunei’s economy has not cooperated with Sin Chew much, so this ASEAN financial center was designated Lose.

England used to be the suzerain country of Brunei, and the British pound has been extremely strong compared with the US dollar for more than a year. It stands to reason that the British pound should be the first choice.

However, because the situation in Xiangjiang has begun to become clear, coupled with the large investment of the Xinjian Department, and considering the strong influence of the Xinjian Department in ASEAN, and the fact that the Hong Kong dollar has sufficient foreign exchange and gold as a guarantee, Brunei The government prefers to peg to the Hong Kong dollar.

At the party, listening to the opinions of the companies under the Xinjian Department, the representatives of Yinglun and Xingzhou felt very uncomfortable. They were quite well-informed and naturally knew why Xinjian was so active.

England has always wanted the pound to return to its peak, wishing that the currencies of all countries and regions were pegged to the pound. As a result, they did not achieve very good results in ASEAN, but let Xiangjiang take the lead.

Sin Chew has also always wanted to become the financial center of Southeast Asia, but it has been suppressed by Xiangjiang all these years, and Sin Chew Yuan wants to become the main currency of ASEAN trade in the foreseeable future.

Neither England nor Sin Chew dare to underestimate the influence of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong dollar, especially when many parties want to challenge the hegemony of the US dollar. It is not impossible for the Hong Kong dollar to become a pole in the diversification of foreign exchange settlement.

Hong Kong has always been a financial center. The Lisboa dollar and the current Brunei dollar are directly linked to the Hong Kong dollar. With the support of the huge market in the north, and Donghua will stir up troubles in the world, who knows whether the Hong Kong dollar will be on an equal footing with the British pound in the future.

This is also the main reason why Xinjian Bank has been restricted in obtaining the right to issue banknotes in Hong Kong dollars. The British side obviously does not want Li Jianhui to dominate the Hong Kong dollar.

The most important reason is that Li Jianhui hopes that the foreign exchange fund will increase the proportion of gold and reduce the dollar and pound. This is the last thing England wants to see.

At present, nearly 50% of the foreign exchange fund is British pounds, and the sum of gold, US dollars, Japanese yen, and marks is slightly more than British pounds.

It should be noted that the Exchange Fund is an exchange fund, in which the foreign exchange guarantees the stability of the Hong Kong dollar and does not usually conduct trade and circulation, and is not a foreign exchange reserve.

In terms of foreign exchange reserves, under the influence of Li Jianhui, the heads of the major banks in Xiangjiang are not stupid. The Japanese yen is the foreign currency with the highest proportion of foreign exchange reserves in Xiangjiang, surpassing not only the US dollar, but also the British pound.

Once according to Li Jianhui's opinion, the proportion of gold and yen is greatly increased, the exchange fund is bound to sell sterling on a large scale, which is extremely detrimental to the globalization of sterling.

The Brunei government is satisfied with the cooperation with the Xinjian Department. This investment will greatly promote the economic development of Brunei.

Lane Crawford and IKEA Convenience Store have also reached cooperation agreements with several food companies in Brunei. As long as the products of these Brunei companies meet the local standards, they can enter the shelves of Lane Crawford and IKEA Convenience Stores in various places.

And what makes Brunei most happy is that Donghua Club, which focuses on real estate finance, did not let its real estate industry enter Brunei, leaving this market to Brunei domestic companies.

In terms of finance, Xinjian Bank, East Asia Bank, and Nanlong Bank have only opened a few business outlets in Brunei, and they mainly serve cross-border businesses, and will not compete with Brunei Bank for the Brunei domestic market.

Because the two parties had already discussed it, the action was quite fast. On the morning of the 2nd, many senior executives of Li Jianhui and Wu Xinjian's department, as well as Chen Zongxue and others signed a cooperation agreement with Brunei.

As for Brunei's mention of wishing Wheelock Land to build a Wheelock Plaza in Brunei, Li Jianhui politely refused.

The main reason is that the population of Brunei is smaller than that of Lisboa, so it is not suitable for the construction of Wheelock Plaza. This is also the main reason why Lane Crawford established Lane Crawford Shopping Center here.

After the contract was signed, Bolkiah said: "We also hope that funds for these projects can enter early, so that these projects can create value as soon as possible."

"Please rest assured that the responsible persons of each enterprise here will contact the government, and the funds will arrive within this month to ensure that various projects can be officially launched."

Regarding the strength of the Xinjian Department, Bolkiah is clear that this investment in Brunei is just a drop in the bucket.

It's a pity that his country's population is too small and the market is too small, so it is impossible to attract too many Xinjian companies to invest.

This scale is possible this time because of the conditions. For the Xinjian Department, it is to invest directly with Hong Kong dollars.

In the future, if Brunei wants to develop its economy independently, it will mainly rely on its own development and only rely on the Xinjian Department. I am afraid that Brunei's economy will be influenced by the Xinjian Department in the future.

Moreover, Bolkiah is still a little worried about the Xinjian Department, that is, the Xinjian Department is not just a business consortium in Southeast Asia, but also meddling in some things that should not be involved.

(End of this chapter)