The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 143 A distinguished guest arrives
Just yesterday, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Abdul and his wife visited China!
Prince Abdul is the younger brother of Saudi King Fahd and the real powerful figure in Saudi Arabia.

He received Islamic education and military training since childhood. He served as the commander of the Royal Guard when he was young. In 1947, at the age of 19, he became the chief executive of the Riyadh region. At the age of 27, he served as Saudi Minister of Agriculture and at the age of 34, he served as Saudi Minister of Defense!
Prince Abdul is in charge of the entire Saudi arms procurement rights.

Prince Bandar, who negotiated the Dongfeng-3 purchase contract from China in the previous life, was Prince Abdul’s eldest son.

The itinerary of Prince Abdul's visit to China has been confirmed, and the focus of the visit will be the purchase negotiations of Type 80 self-propelled anti-aircraft guns and Type 80 tanks.

As the developer of the Type 80 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun and Type 80 tank, and also the one with the most extensive experience in foreign weapons and equipment trade, Liu Tao was naturally chosen.

The general who appointed Liu Tao was not the leader of the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building, but the leader above.

Liu Tao was very excited when he got the news.

Because the super fat sheep is coming!
This super fat sheep is no less powerful than Iraq.

Iraq is rich, and Saudi Arabia is also rich. Last year, Saudi Arabia's GDP was 1118.6 billion US dollars, three times that of Iraq. Saudi Arabia's per capita GDP was 1.16 US dollars, also three times that of Iraq.

In 1973, Egypt, Syria and 12 other countries launched the "Ramadan War" against Israel. The US passed a huge military aid of 22 billion US dollars to Israel, which angered the Arab world. The Middle East imposed an oil embargo on the US, and the first oil crisis broke out. When other Arab countries were trying to suffocate the United States with oil, only Saudi Arabia acquiesced to Aramco's increase in production against the trend, which solved the urgent needs of the United States and in return won the US permission to allow Saudi Arabia to invest in Aramco. In 1973, the Saudi government invested 25% in Aramco, and in 1974 it rose to 60%.

Relying on oil, Saudi Arabia has also made a lot of money when oil prices were high in recent years, and its foreign exchange reserves have reached 300 billion US dollars!
The fair business with Iraq can only be done for ten years!
But the fair and honest business with Saudi Arabia can last at least forty years or even longer!
If you develop a strong friendship with Prince Abdul, you should know that he will be in power for at least another thirty years, and you will definitely not lack orders during these thirty years.

Liu Tao likes this kind of business the most, which is not a one-time deal but a long-term business!
He made sufficient preparations for this purpose, and was even ready to put on a big show, using a wonderful performance to completely win the heart of Prince Abdul.

As early as three days ago, all weapons and equipment had arrived at the military base. Combined with the previous ones, Liu Tao didn't believe that he could not shock Prince Abdul.

Nearly two hours later, when the secretary informed Liu Tao that he could go to Wang Baoguo's office, Liu Tao and the secretary went to Wang Baoguo's office.

Wang Baoguo was standing up and drinking water from an old enamel teacup.

"Oh, our God of Wealth is here!" Wang Baoguo said with a smile.

Liu Tao complained: "What God of Wealth? I'm so poor that I almost have to beg for food!"

"You just settled 2.19 million yuan last month. Now you are complaining to me. I want to kick you to death!" Wang Baoguo cursed with a smile.

Among all the major military factories in the country, none is as wealthy as Panshan Machinery Factory.

"The landlords don't have any surplus food!" Liu Tao spread his hands. "Our three military factory branches, namely the original 991 Factory, 9907 Factory, and 9805 Factory, the second and third phase factories will cost more than million each, which means billion!"

"Now the construction of the new plant area of ​​256 Factory in Shancheng will also require an investment of billion yuan, which is as high as billion yuan!" Liu Tao counted on his fingers, "And we will cooperate with Hong Kong Tycoon Huo to build a computer manufacturing plant in Pengcheng, which will also require an investment of million yuan!"

At the Panshan Machinery Factory headquarters, the construction is nearing completion, and it is more about housing construction, so the investment will not be too large.

But the construction of other factories really costs money like water.

Earn more, spend more!

"I'm just worried that you've expanded your business so much, what will you do if your capital chain breaks?" Wang Baoguo took a sip of water and put down the enamel teacup in his hand.

Liu Tao's ability to make money is naturally beyond doubt, and the title of God of Wealth is recognized throughout the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building.

But at the same time, Liu Tao's ability to spend money is also extremely terrifying. He spends all the money he earns.

"There's nothing we can do. This is the only way to develop!" Liu Tao spread his hands helplessly: "We also accept the construction of a railway to connect to the railway line for our military factory."

In order to facilitate transportation, it is not enough to just rebuild a factory, but it is also necessary to build and widen roads and construct railways to connect to the existing railway network.

In addition, there is the construction of reservoirs and hydropower stations.

If a separate factory was built, it wouldn't cost so much money.

"Leader, you have to settle the deposit from Iraq this time. The factory construction is waiting for the money!" Liu Tao said, "They have already paid the deposit of 17.5 billion US dollars!"

A deposit of US$17.5 billion is a huge sum of RMB 30.625 billion.

With this money, building a factory is not a problem.

"So you're planning to take this money!" Wang Baoguo said unhappily, "In the past, we settled the account after the order was completed. But these few times, you want to settle the account before the order is completed!"

Liu Tao said shamelessly: "Don't we need you to support us vigorously?"

Liu Tao felt no psychological pressure about this, as the money was a deposit for the order and was originally intended for Panshan Machinery Factory.

There's nothing to be embarrassed about using your own deposit.

Foreign exchange controls are strict now, and when Panshan Machinery Factory becomes independent in the future, it will not need to go through the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building.

To be honest, even though Panshan Machinery Factory has made a lot of money in the past few months, he can still feel the huge financial pressure as he expands his business.

Once a project starts, it cannot be stopped. If it is stopped, the losses will be greater, so it must be completed in one go.

The construction of several factories is not just the business of Panshan Machinery Factory, but is closely linked to the local area and the province.

In order to build the second and third phases of the three factories, Yunnan Province helped organize tens of thousands of workers. If the construction of the Chaishitan Reservoir is included, the total number of workers organized exceeded 100,000.

Although the average salary of each person is less than two yuan, the daily salary expenditure is more than 200,000 yuan, which means more than 6 million yuan a month.

As for food, drink, defecation, and building materials costs, there are even more.

Thanks to these projects, Yunnan Province has been able to get by better in the past two years and has not fallen into direct difficulties due to the country's reduction in Third Line construction expenses.

Similarly, Shancheng readily allocated 256 acres of land because the total investment in the new plant area of ​​Factory exceeded billion yuan, which could provide a lot of labor and bring income to other state-owned factories.

This time when Liu Tao came, even if he couldn't settle the entire $17.5 billion deposit, he had to at least settle half of it.

Only when you have money in your pocket can you feel at ease.

Panshan Machinery Factory is developing rapidly. Internal personnel issues are not a problem. It just takes time to slowly get used to each other. The real big problem is lack of money.

(End of this chapter)