The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Chapter 635 Where is the road?

After Feng Defeng left, Liu Tao made tea by himself for a while.

A thoughtful look appeared on his face.

Thanks to the development of Panshan Group, China's development is much faster than Liu Tao imagined.

The major state-owned enterprises are in much better condition, and there has been no large-scale mismanagement. Although they are all crying poor, they can still support themselves.

The situation in other military factories is not too bad, but it is definitely not prosperous.

The army needs to be patient, and everything must give way to economic development.

This alone is enough to make most military factories depressed.

However, the core military industrial units also receive a lot of funding every year. Although it is not enough to make these units well-off, at least they can have enough food and clothing.

After all, not every military-industrial unit has the right to raise funds, independently establish projects and export like Panshan Group, and not every military-industrial unit has the ability to win overseas orders.

However, Panshan Group has this right because it has proven itself with its own strength. Its political achievements are there, which makes the leaders above take notice of it and feel at ease.

Since 1978, China's military industry system, Panshan Machinery Factory and Panshan Group have always been the most promising ones. There have been repeated innovations in military scientific research results, and there are countless awards every year. Liu Tao alone has won so many awards that he can't even handle them all.

In the process of Panshan Machinery Factory's development and growth, it naturally led to the development of a large number of enterprises.

About 80% of them are state-owned enterprises and 20% are private enterprises.

I don’t know how many state-owned enterprises have relied on the development of Panshan Machinery Factory to achieve their own rapid development and avoid falling into operational difficulties like other state-owned enterprises.

There are also countless private enterprises that have gradually grown and developed relying on orders from Panshan Machinery Factory.

Panshan Group is not just a group, but also a system, an entire upstream and downstream industrial chain, with tens of thousands of supporting factories behind it.

If Panshan Group falls into development difficulties, many factories will also fall into development difficulties.

Therefore, Panshan Group must continue to develop rapidly.

If you want to develop rapidly, you cannot do without orders.

The country focuses on economic development, and military spending will not increase significantly. Panshan Group can still sell weapons, equipment and ammunition to the military at a meager profit. This means that the orders will not be too many and are limited, so the company must rely on overseas orders.

However, at present, as the world situation tends to stabilize, the total contract volume of overseas orders does not seem to have decreased, but those are mainly high-value items such as tanks, armored vehicles, aircraft, warships, air defense missiles, and anti-ship missiles. The export of firearms and ammunition is showing a downward trend.

Tanks, armored vehicles, aircraft, warships, and missiles are naturally high-profit, high-value, and super-high-profit, and are the core.

However, exports of firearms and ammunition have lower profits, but they are still important because they are related to employment!

Liu Tao looked at the world map on the wall. His gaze did not stay on China, but looked overseas.

The entire Nanyang will be relatively calm in the future. North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia will mainly focus on construction, building roads and railways, developing agriculture and mining, and opening up seaports for Yunnan and Guangxi provinces.

In Myanmar, half of the region is focused on development, and the other half is relatively turbulent. Weapons are mainly limited to guns, bullets, and artillery shells. Tanks and armored vehicles are mainly exported, such as the Type 59 tank, and the number will not be too large. In addition, the China-Myanmar railway is under construction, and things will gradually become peaceful in the future.

The entire Southeast Asia is rapidly moving towards peace, developing roads, railways, and shipping. It is expected that these places will develop rapidly in the next 20 to 30 years. The only country that can really import large quantities of weapons and equipment is Thailand.

In recent years, Thailand's economy has made great achievements, developed at a very fast speed, and its economic structure has undergone significant changes. Relying on strong demand from China, Thailand exports large quantities of grain, natural rubber, etc.

Thailand's foreign exchange reserves now have reached 150 billion US dollars.

"I don't know whether Thailand, which is not under much external pressure now, is willing to increase its investment in military equipment." Liu Tao touched his chin, feeling unsure.

Before, Thailand was very active in arming its forces. One very important reason was that it faced military pressure from Annan in the east and pressure from the war in Myanmar in the west.

But now, both pressures are gone.

Panshan Group has been negotiating with Thailand on the Kra Canal in recent years. As the Chao Phraya River shipping issue has been almost finalized, it is only a matter of time before the Kra Canal is finalized.

The Chao Phraya River, the largest river in Thailand, runs across the country from north to south. It originates from the Shan Plateau in northwestern Thailand, flows to the flat area in the south, forms the Chao Phraya Delta, and finally flows into the Bangkok Bay. It is 1352 kilometers long and has a basin area of ​​17 square kilometers.

The Chao Phraya River only needs to be artificially dug into a canal in the north to connect with the Salween River and the Mekong River to form an inland canal, which will have great value for shipping.

Although the shipping speed is slower, the transportation capacity is strong and it can be transported directly to the Gulf of Thailand. If the Kra Canal is navigable, it can directly bypass the Malacca Strait, which will be of great significance.

If the forces in Myanmar were not so complicated and it were not possible to develop shipping on the Irrawaddy and Salween rivers in a short period of time, Liu Tao would not have focused on the Chao Phraya River.

"Thailand~~" Liu Tao stared at the map of Thailand, thoughts flashing through his eyes.

To be honest, Liu Tao is not too sure whether Thailand will import some tanks, armored vehicles, warships and aircraft.

Even though Panshan Group has been increasing its work in Thailand in recent years and the two sides have had frequent contacts, Thailand is a country with relatively large autonomy, and the Chinese forces here are diverse and even hostile.

So far, the two sides have mainly cooperated in economy and trade, with relatively little cooperation in politics and military affairs.

Afterwards, Liu Tao turned his attention to several western countries and India. Currently, the countries in the South Asian subcontinent are more engaged in a war of words, and the possibility of a war is not very high.

Pakistan, on the other hand, may import aircraft, warships and missiles in order to cope with the pressure from India.

However, Pakistan is also facing considerable troubles now, and it is hard to say whether it will spend a large sum of money on purchases at this time.

Liu Tao turned his attention to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia.

The Philippines and Malaysia can be excluded directly.

Singapore is a tiny place, so small that it can be called a country, but in fact it is just a city.

"Indonesia?" Liu Tao frowned slightly.

Indonesia has a land area of ​​191.36 million square kilometers and consists of approximately 17508 islands. It is the largest archipelago country in the world, with its territory spanning Asia and Oceania. The larger islands include Kalimantan, Sumatra, Irian, Sulawesi and Java. It currently has a population of 1.76 million and a GDP of US$843 billion last year, making it a relatively poor country.

Since the end of the 16th century, Indonesia has been a Dutch colony. It was occupied by Japan in 1942. With the end of World War II in 1945, the Japanese left Indonesia. Under the wave of national liberation in the world, Indonesia gained independence and successively armed resistance against the invasion of Britain and the Netherlands.

Indonesia has been a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries since 1962, and oil exports account for a large proportion of its foreign trade.

(End of this chapter)