Chapter 1171 International Trade Is Difficult

The plane landed at the airport! After that, the old overseas Chinese found that the person Fan Danbing mentioned was called "Qin Meng.

There were at least dozens of people who came to the airport to greet him, and after getting off the plane, there were indeed several government officials who came to greet Fan Wubing, such as the head of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, etc. These people came because Fan Wubing contacted them in advance and said that there were important overseas Chinese arriving on the same plane, so they rushed over.

Fan Wubing solemnly introduced the old overseas Chinese to everyone, and then arranged for someone to accompany the old man to visit and play in various places. At the same time, he specially allocated funds to accompany him to his hometown to donate to build a school ancestral hall.

As for himself, after receiving the old overseas Chinese, he began to hand over the ore samples to domestic experts in narrow iron mixed ore for identification. At the same time, he had to consult the relevant technology to see if the other party was really It is possible to separate ilmenite.

It didn't take long for this information to be confirmed. The other party did have this new technology, and it was a technology that no company in the world had. Their technology came from the chief engineer of a consortium of one of the largest metallurgical companies in Europe and the chief prospector of one of the world's three mining giants. The technical level was still very high, but the only flaw was that this technology had never been actually applied, and the research and development risk was very high. It is very likely to become a bottomless pit or fail in research, and then all the money will be lost.

In fact, the other party wanted to build this separation plant. And they also asked Fan Investment Group to pay for it, which was actually transferring the risk. If it succeeded, they would make money. If it failed, then Fan Investment Group would naturally lose all the money.

Fan Wubing also considered that if It is possible to gamble if the operation is carried out in the way of commercial venture capital, but this requires both parties to know the situation, rather than letting Fan Investment Group pay the money and only get the iron ore. The pitiful 1% of the profit is also an uncertain profit with huge risks.

This is because Fan Investment Group has never lacked cash and foreign exchange, as well as sources of funds. Otherwise, if Fan Investment Group is a general domestic enterprise, it would definitely be difficult to make direct foreign exchange investments. Once an investment such as a letter of credit is used, the risk is very high. If all the money is lost, the other party can take the agreement and say that they are really investing and ask Fan Investment Group to pay back the money. If the money is not paid back, it will really become a letter of credit fraud.

So they will let the company take out a loan, as if the company is a limited liability company, In fact, it is China's unlimited liability, such high-risk technology research investment. The investment proposed by the other party is often very conservative. It is normal that the actual cost is several times the amount calculated. Just like there are many fishing projects in the establishment of some domestic projects, they first make you take the bait with a small amount, and then they will not invest in the future. For investments that are almost certainly in this situation, the financial capacity of ordinary companies cannot afford it, not to mention the business environment in Africa, where you can never bet all your worth.

Another point is that after Fan Wubing returned to China, the expert team in Africa obtained intelligence after investigation.

They said that in Africa, commercial espionage and commercial bribery are rampant in mining, which is much worse than in China, and the lawyers who charge 10,000 US dollars an hour will also be bought off.

Don't look at his charge of 10,000 US dollars a time. Compared with the mining transactions worth billions of US dollars, this is nothing, because there is no business reputation here, and the integrity is worse than that of lawyers in China.

The most common practice is to find an expert who knows African mining laws, and let the legal expert ask questions. At the same time, find a few more local lawyers in Africa, let them not know each other's existence, and ask them the same questions separately.

If what they say is consistent, then it is credible. If what they say is very different, then the problem is obvious, and one of them must have been bribed.

And after the experts explored those minerals. They re-estimated the project. If the benefits of titanium are calculated, the value should not be less than tens of billions of dollars.

There is another fact that makes Fan Wubing quite worried. As soon as he returned to China, he began to look for domestic legal resources for support, but he soon found that he could not find an expert who knows African mining laws in China. There are still some scholars in British and American laws, but such experts cannot be applied in practice, because the purpose of their research is more to learn from their advanced legislative ideas to build China's legal system, rather than real application.

As a result, their practical ability is very limited, their on-the-spot reaction and experience are basically equal to zero, and their theoretical level cannot be compared with foreign experts. Basically, they are good at foreign languages, so they do legal translation work, and they have no own opinions on legal ideas.

If we use competition as an analogy here, they are sports theorists rather than athletes. These theorists have problems as coaches, let alone competing on the field. China does not have athletes who can compete on the field.

There is another very important issue, that is, all lawyers who consult you must "follow the rules of local lawyer services". If you ask a question, he must answer you truthfully. If the answer is wrong, the lawyer must bear the responsibility, but if there are some questions you did not ask, he has no obligation to remind you.

The biggest problem now is that they do not understand the local laws at all. Fan Wubing and his team can't even ask questions themselves, so what projects can they do?

Chinese entrepreneurs know very little about foreign countries, and China has no experts of its own at home. How can they not be deceived? And how many years will it take to cultivate such an applicable expert on African issues? And now there is another point, that is, we don’t even know how to cultivate such experts. From this, we can know that China wants to expand its soft power. It is really difficult to reach heaven!

Fan Wubing had not been back for half a day when Boss Zhu asked him to come over to discuss things.

After meeting Boss Zhu, Fan Wubing told him about his trip to Africa. Then there was another bitter experience, which showed how difficult it is for domestic companies to go out and develop external resources.

Boss Zhu was touched after listening to Fan Wubing's words. He said to Fan Wubing, "Our country's foreign exchange reserves have increased dramatically in recent years. However, with the rapid economic development and the shortage of resources, the society is full of calls to invest overseas and develop resources. . It seems that you can buy anything if you have money, but your experience when you came back this time gave me the deepest understanding that China’s soft power is insufficient and money alone cannot solve the problem. If you don’t have your own expert team and don’t understand the rules of the mining industry and the market, you will be defrauded if you have money. Without the backing of the country’s military strength, your personal safety overseas cannot be guaranteed, so what. Go and do business with peace of mind?”

This topic is obviously quite heavy. Boss Zhu took a break and then continued. "If the country's enterprises come forward, they will also face some international interference and political problems. Therefore, money cannot solve all problems. Money is easy to raise, but the soft power necessary to make money overseas cannot be achieved in a day, so China The expansion of national power is far from simple economic growth. It is a long-term and step-by-step process. China's overseas development of resources is only possible with the growth of national power as a strong backing. "

Fan Wubing deeply agreed with what Boss Zhu said, and this experience also allowed him to see it. Some things cannot be solved by money alone. Deterrence by force is very useful at any time.

"By the way, you are so anxious to come to me. What on earth do you have to do?" Fan Wubing remembered that when he came over this time, Boss Zhu's secretary pressed him very hard on the phone, so he asked road.

"Well, it's also some troublesome things." Boss Zhu touched his forehead and said to Fan Wubing. "In recent times, the economic and trade relations between China and Russia have been affected. The situation is not very good."

"Oh?" Fan Wubing was stunned for a moment.

Since the establishment of the regular meeting mechanism between the Chinese and Russian prime ministers in December 1996, Sino-Russian economic and trade cooperation has entered a period of stable and rapid development. Reached unprecedented breadth and depth.

In 2001, the bilateral trade volume between China and Russia exceeded the US$10 billion mark for the first time. This year it will continue to maintain rapid growth, and the trade volume is expected to reach a new high. Russia is now China's eighth largest trading partner, and China is Russia's sixth largest trading partner. Economic and technological cooperation between the two countries in various fields is developing smoothly, especially large projects involving the national economy and people's livelihood are advancing steadily, and economic and trade cooperation has become diversified. pattern.

In August last year, China and Russia had just signed the "China-Russia Good-Neighborly and Friendly Cooperation Treaty" and believed that economic and trade cooperation is the material basis for China-Russia good-neighborly and friendly cooperation and an important guarantee for maintaining the strong vitality of the strategic partnership between the two countries. Only by continuously actively exploring new directions and areas of cooperation, and formulating long-term cooperation plans while formulating specific measures for the implementation of relevant projects in various fields and solving specific problems can we ensure that China-Russia economic and trade cooperation can be long-term, stable, and healthy. The development of the two countries provides a solid foundation that can be relied on for the continuous development of the strategic partnership of coordination in the political field between the two countries.

However, according to Boss Zhu, the two sides have recently experienced rare frictions since the establishment of the China-Russia strategic partnership of coordination, and these frictions are mainly concentrated in the field of economic and trade cooperation.

"I remember when I went to Africa, there didn't seem to be so many problems, right?" Fan Wubing couldn't help but feel very curious, wondering why so many conflicts suddenly broke out.

But I think about what I experienced in Africa. Fan Wubing couldn't help but sigh secretly, thinking that this international trade is really difficult.