The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 216 The Charm of Foreign Exchange

The whole country is in great shortage of foreign exchange!
Liu Tao obtained a lot of foreign exchange last year.

However, last year the country's foreign exchange balance was less than US$20 billion.

This also means that if the foreign exchange obtained by Liu Tao is not counted, the national foreign exchange balance last year was even negative, and it was not even at the level of negative tens of billions of US dollars.

Liu Tao obtained foreign exchange and settled accounts with the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building, which then settled accounts with Hua Xia Bank. Then the foreign exchange was quickly spent.

Although the country established the State Administration of Foreign Exchange in 1979, it is responsible for centralized management and unified operation of foreign exchange business across the country.

But in fact, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange and Hua Xia Bank are "one organization, two brands". Hua Xia Bank has a foreign exchange department to undertake foreign exchange management business.

In order to encourage foreign exchange earnings, the country began to implement a trade and non-trade foreign exchange retention system in August 1979, that is, each foreign exchange earning local government, department and enterprise can have a certain proportion of foreign exchange quota to solve the import of materials and technology needed for production and operation.

Each unit that needs foreign exchange needs to apply for it specifically. Since the beginning of last year, the review has been very strict. You cannot apply for foreign exchange just because you want to.

Yunnan Province also needs foreign exchange, but cannot find a way to obtain it.

So Panshan Machinery Factory became the only solution.

Liu Tao frowned and said, "Leader, I'm afraid I can't help you with this matter right now. You may not know that the foreign exchange we earn from export trade has to go through the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building. We only have a quota of one million US dollars a year."

"One million US dollars is a lot. We can't even get a hundred thousand US dollars!" The leader's eyes lit up.

Liu Tao smiled bitterly and said, "This one million US dollars is not enough for our Panshan Machinery Factory. We will send cadres abroad for study visits, and we will need foreign exchange when we go abroad."

One million US dollars may seem like a lot, but it may not be enough for Liu Tao's plan.

If a cadre is asked to go out and wash dishes in a restaurant, he will not be able to do such a thing.

"But if it is next year, we can give the province some foreign exchange quota," said Liu Tao.

The leader's eyes lit up. "Next year? That's also possible. How much foreign exchange quota can we have?"

"There should be no problem with a foreign exchange quota of one million." Liu Tao smiled.

This one million foreign exchange quota naturally did not come from the arms trade of Panshan Machinery Factory, because all the money earned from the arms trade had to be settled with the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building.

As for the gold obtained from trade at the border, Liu Tao was reluctant to exchange it for US dollars. It was really not worth it.

His foreign exchange quota comes from China Golden Dragon Computer Co., Ltd.

Even if we are conservative, there will be no problem in producing 100,000 computers in the first year, and these computers will sell well in Europe and the United States.

By then, according to the foreign exchange retention system, China Golden Dragon Computer Co., Ltd. will naturally have a lot of foreign exchange.

When the leader heard that there was a foreign exchange quota of one million, he couldn't help but grin.

Liu Tao secretly sighed in his heart, even in this era of scarce foreign exchange, if it were thirty years later, China would have nearly 3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, and everyone would even have a headache about how to spend the foreign exchange. For such a leader, the leader would not even look at one million in foreign exchange.

At that time, the huge foreign exchange reserves were definitely a happy trouble.

"Leader, we still need the province's support for these projects at Panshan Machinery Factory!" said Liu Tao.

Whether it is the construction of factories or the construction of these reservoirs and hydropower stations, they cannot be separated from the support of the province.

Currently, those reservoirs and hydropower stations are either in the design stage or in the planning stage. The provincial government has to handle all the formalities, and when it comes to construction, the province has to organize a large number of people to carry out the construction.

The construction costs of these reservoirs and hydropower stations are not a large sum of money for Panshan Machinery Factory at present.

But it is extremely important for Panshan Machinery Factory. Without water and electricity, these factories are useless no matter how big they are or how advanced their machinery and equipment are.

Panshan Machinery Factory, Combined Brigade Command.

All the platoon-level cadres came to the headquarters because today they would meet the legendary factory director.

Except for the soldiers from the original combined battalion, no one else has seen Liu Tao so far.

However, although I have not seen it, I often hear it and it is always mentioned.

On the first day, they were repeatedly told that the combined brigade did not belong to the army but to the armed forces department of the Panshan Machinery Factory.

In other words, Liu Tao is their leader.

Liu Tao, Li Fuguo and Zhao Guoping came over and everyone stood up.

"Brigade Commander! Political Commissar!" A group of soldiers in camouflage uniforms saluted.

Many people looked at Liu Tao with doubts in their eyes.

Zhao Guoping introduced: "Comrades, this is the director of our Panshan Machinery Factory, Comrade Liu Tao!"

"Hello, Commander!" The soldiers saluted Liu Tao.

Liu Tao returned the salute, "Hello, comrades!"

"Serve the people!"

"Director, this is Hu Ping, formerly the Chief of Staff of the 1st Independent Division of the Provincial Military Region." Zhao Guoping first introduced the Chief of Staff of the combined brigade.

The plan to streamline the troops first abolished the independent divisions of the provincial military regions and transferred some troops to local areas. At the same time, some field army infantry divisions were turned into simplified divisions.

Hu Ping, who previously served as the chief of staff of an independent division, is only in his fifties this year and is in his prime.

Cadres like Hu Ping currently account for almost half.

It turned out that the soldiers of the combined battalion accounted for half of the cadres of the combined brigade, and the other half were supported by their superiors. These supporting cadres came from all over the country, some from Yunnan Province, and some from other military regions.

Some of them come from streamlined troops and are being resettled, while the other part is young cadres who are being trained as the focus.

Almost all those who come to the combined forces brigade are downgraded.

"This is Li Hua, the former commander of the 1st Independent Division." Zhao Guoping introduced a middle-aged man.

Li Hua is the commander of the Independent 1st Division, Chen Ping is the commander of the Independent 2nd Division, and now they serve as deputy brigade commanders of the combined brigade.

This is not only a placement of cadres for streamlining the force, but also a consideration by the higher-ups that the combined brigade is a young force that requires mature and stable cadres to balance it, so these two were arranged to serve as deputy brigade commanders.

Li Hua and Chen Ping saluted Liu Tao. Although they were much older than Liu Tao, both over fifty years old, and even a few years older than Liu Tao's father Liu Zhenbang, they did not take advantage of their age.

Before coming to Panshan Machinery Factory, I had a specific talk with them and sought their opinions.

They were unwilling to retreat to the second line. They all knew about the combat record of the combined battalion and understood that it was an experimental force, so they all chose to come to the combined brigade.

Besides, they were in an independent division before, and their administrative level was not as high as Liu Tao's now, so they had no reluctance at all to receive this military salute.

After arriving at the combined forces brigade and getting to know the force more deeply, they were all glad for their choice.

(End of this chapter)