Chapter 379: Bird Company and the Richest Man’s Troubles + A Call From My Sister-in-Law
Next, Yao Yuancheng asked the two main leaders of the Management Committee of Mingzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone and the Management Committee of the Free Trade Zone to introduce the preferential policies of their two national parks.
Li Xiaofan listened and found that the current foreign investment policy was really favorable. If it belongs to the encouraged industries of the "Guidance Catalogue of Foreign Investment Industries", the transfer price of industrial land with seven connections and one leveling is 50,000 yuan per mu, and the equipment import tariff is exempted.
On the basis of the state's "two exemptions and three reductions" tax policy for foreign investment, the Management Committee also introduced a more favorable "three exemptions and five reductions" tax policy, and good projects also have landing subsidies.
At that time, the country was in a boom of investment promotion, and all regions were pulling projects to compete for whose policies were more favorable. To use Li Xiaofan's fashionable words before his rebirth, "involution" is very powerful!
At present, Mingzhou, a sub-provincial city in the first batch of independently planned cities in the country, is mainly competing for investment promotion in Kunshan and Suzhou in neighboring Jiangsu.
This Kunshan is a wonderful county-level city, a god-like existence! In 1985, without paying a penny to the state, the local government established the Kunshan Development Zone at its own expense. Then it started to grow rapidly. In August 1992, it was miraculously approved by the state to become a national-level development zone, creating the first case in the country where a county-level development zone became a national-level park!
At that time, Kunshan, which was close to Shanghai, successfully attracted many excellent foreign investment projects from Shanghai, among which the concentration of many Taiwanese investment projects was the biggest highlight.
Although Mingzhou City has a unique natural deep-water port, Beilun Port, the current transportation from Mingzhou to Shanghai is not convenient.
The Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo Expressway connecting Mingzhou to Shanghai is still under construction. It will not be completed and opened to traffic until the end of 1998, two years later. The world's longest cross-sea bridge connecting the two places, the Hangzhou Bay Bridge, will not be completed until 2005, ten years later.
Three years ago, former Singapore Prime Minister Mr. Lee led a large team to inspect Mingzhou City and Beilun Port. Mingzhou, with its natural deep-water harbor, is geographically similar to Singapore and was once one of the first cities for Singapore to invest in industrial parks on the mainland. However, it is said that the people of Mingzhou were too "smart" in the final negotiation and refused to compromise on business conditions such as land prices. In the end, Senior Minister Lee chose to invest in Suzhou Industrial Park in Suzhou...
At present, a number of large Taiwanese projects such as Hushi Electronics, Giant, and Hon Hai have settled in Kunshan. Not to mention the Suzhou Industrial Park, a joint venture between China and Singapore, the investment promotion teams of JTC Jurong and Ascendas Group under Singapore's state-owned Temasek flew overseas to attract investment worldwide, and a large number of multinational companies and Fortune 500 projects settled in Kunshan...
At present, a wave of industrial transfer is rising around the world, and many multinational companies and foreign-funded enterprises have transferred factories and projects from Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia with higher costs to invest in mainland China.
Three years ago, Mingzhou missed a great opportunity to cooperate with Singapore. At present, Mingzhou's foreign investment promotion work has been left behind by Kunshan, Suzhou and other surrounding advanced regions, which makes Yao Yuancheng, who has just taken office in charge of the open economy, very anxious.
So the newly appointed deputy mayor was anxious to come out to attract investment and discuss projects. Li Xiaofan, the new richest man in Minnesota, was one of his key tracking targets.
After some communication, Li Xiaofan expressed his attitude:
"Thank you Mayor Yao and all the leaders for your concern. When the time is right, I will definitely consider investing in some suitable projects in my hometown. Please be patient and give me some time!"
When Li Xiaofan and others were about to leave, Yao Yuancheng looked at the time on his watch. It was almost eleven o'clock in the afternoon, so he asked: "Mr. Li, it's getting late. How about having a light meal in the private room of our municipal government cafeteria at noon?"
"Mayor Yao, thank you, I appreciate it. I have to rush to Fenghua at noon, and I have an appointment to discuss projects in the afternoon..."
"Fenghua, do you have a project in Fenghua?" Yao Yuancheng asked curiously.
"Not really. We have an appointment with several founders of Fenghua Bird Company at 1 pm to exchange ideas."
"Fenghua Bird Company has been developing well recently. The digital pagers and stock pagers they recently developed have just been put into production. I heard that the stock pager is selling very well. Mr. Li, are you interested in investing in this company?" The sensitive Yao Yuancheng asked.
Seeing that the leader was so concerned, Li Xiaofan was embarrassed to hide it, so he said: "Indeed, I have this idea myself. However, I have not contacted the entrepreneurial team of Fenghua Bird, and I haven't made any progress yet..."
"Mr. Li, let me say hello to the leaders of Fenghua City later, and let them receive you well together, strive for your successful cooperation with Fenghua Bird Company, and attract more foreign investment!"
Fenghua is the hometown of Chiang Kai-shek. In 1988, the county was abolished and the city was established. Now it is a county-level city under Mingzhou City.
"Mayor Yao, thank you so much!"
...
After Li Xiaofan and others arrived at Fenghua Bird in the afternoon, Fenghua Vice Mayor Liu, who is in charge of industry and open economy, and Bird's entrepreneurial team warmly welcomed Li Xiaofan and his party.
Fenghua leaders and Bird's entrepreneurial team were very excited to hear that the richest man in Minnesota, worth more than 200 million US dollars, came to visit and cooperate.
Fenghua Bird's founders Xu Lihua, the big general manager, and Xu Xiguang, the small general manager, and other founders attended.
After the greetings, Xu Lihua introduced the development of Bird and said with emotion:
"Mr. Li, when we first settled this project, we have to thank the Fenghua local government. They are the earliest angel investors and strong backers of our project!"
It turned out that Xu Lihua’s team convinced Fenghua city leaders with a business plan four years ago. Then Fenghua City asked the local state-owned company under the Daqiao Town Government to invest 10 million yuan to hold 51% of the shares. Xu Lihua's team used technology to hold 49% of the shares, and established Fenghua Bird Company in Fenghua to produce Chinese pagers.
When Xu Lihua said this, Li Xiaofan had to admire the vision and courage of Qian Zhihui, the main decision-maker at the time. The government acts as an angel investor for projects. If the project succeeds, forget it. If it fails, it will be accused of losing state-owned assets. What kind of courage, vision and courage this requires!
The initial quality of the waveguide pagers in the early days of the business was very poor and they were often returned. Therefore, in order to solve the financial dilemma, in 1994, Bird Company and Hong Kong General Company jointly established Jitong Bird Co., Ltd. Hong Kong General Motors invested more than 40 million yuan, accounting for 82.5% of the shares. The equity of the founding team such as Xu Lihua dropped to 14.7%.
But last year, conflicts arose over the selection of a new plant. In June 1995, Hong Kong General Company divested its investment and launched Jitong Waveguide, which officially disbanded. Then in July, the founding team of Bird once again joined forces with Daqiao Town to establish Bird Co., Ltd. The new Bird company had a registered capital of 20 million yuan. Xu Lihua and several entrepreneurial partners held 80% of the shares. Xu Lihua served as the company's chairman and general manager.
In the second half of 1995 last year, Bird took the lead in developing the first Chinese pager that integrated the three functions of Chinese paging, stock instant information, and public information, dwarfing foreign brand Chinese pagers that were only used for personal paging. , bringing new vitality to waveguides.
Vice Mayor Liu of Fenghua and the founding team of Bird expressed their warm welcome to the visit of Li Xiaofan and his delegation.
"Mr. Xu, what are your company's next plans and plans?" Li Xiaofan asked.
"Our next goal is that our pager products will defeat the American Motorola company in the future!" Xu Lihua said with confidence.
In 1988, after the first pager on the Chinese market was introduced to China by Motorola, various products were successively produced at Motorola's Tianjin production base. In the early 1990s, Motorola pagers, which cost several thousand yuan, accounted for about 70% of the market share. Motorola was also the dominant player in the field of paging transmitters and other supporting product software. Throughout the 1990s, Motorola made a lot of money in the mainland pager market.
Last year, in December 1955, Shanghai Wireless Communication Equipment Co., Ltd. and Motorola Corporation of the United States jointly established Shanghai Motorola Paging Products Co., Ltd., which was absolutely controlled by Motorola Corporation of the United States. The two parties established the largest pager production and R&D base in China, with an annual production of Capacity exceeds 6 million units.
The current production capacity of Bird Company has just reached an annual output of 100,000 pagers, and sales last year were only 20,000 units, which is not in the same order of magnitude as Motorola.
"Mr. Xu, you are diving into the pager industry. Aren't you worried that this pager industry will be eliminated by the mobile phone industry in the future?" Li Xiaofan asked.
"Director Li, although the price of pagers has dropped sharply, our company has now begun to build its own paging stations in Minzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan and other places. At present, our three-in-one paging station has the function of stock information query Chinese pagers are selling very well, so there should be no problem in the next few years..."
In 1995, mobile phones started the rhythm of mass consumption. Under the strong offensive of mobile phones, BP pagers began to lose their halo, and the price also dropped all the way, from more than 1,000 yuan to 500 to 600 yuan, and then to 200 yuan to 300 yuan. The fee has also been reduced to less than 200 yuan, and it will be free in the later period.
The current Bird Company is earning the last wave of dividends.
Even when Bird launched the mobile phone project in 1999, the Bird team decided to implement the "borrowing principle" and cooperated with the French company Sagem, the world's sixth largest mobile phone manufacturer and a manufacturer of military aircraft, to introduce its full set of mature mobile phone products and technologies.
This "fighter among mobile phones" once had great glory, but after the country liberalized mobile phone licenses, this "bird" company that was not enterprising and lacked a higher strategic vision quickly fell from the altar...
Compared with Huawei in Shenzhen, it’s like a world away!
…
After visiting Fenghua Waveguide Company, we were driving back to Mingzhou.
"Director Li, should we invest in this waveguide company next?" Yang Feiyan asked.
"I haven't thought about it yet. I'll add it to the project library first. Feiyan, can you help me find it? Is there a company called Huawei in Shenzhen that produces communication equipment..."
After researching Bird, Li Xiaofan suddenly felt that investing in this "bird" company was meaningless. It would be better to invest the money in Huawei.
When Li Xiaofan was thinking, Wu Xiumei said: "Director Li, during the meeting just now in the afternoon, I received calls from several bank presidents, all of whom wanted to invite you to dinner in the evening. Later, I asked about it and found out that it was Mayor Yao who met in the morning. After meeting you, your worth was known to these well-informed bank presidents..."
At that time, many family members of leaders in the system liked to work in banks, where they could easily make deposits and get lots of bonuses.
"Forget it, just reject them all, I don't have time!" Li Xiaofan said to Wu Xiumei.
Wu Xiumei said in embarrassment: "Mr. Li, I suggest that if you have time, you should give Bank of China a favor and have a meal with them? Our company's basic account is opened in their bonded area branch. Their service is usually very good. Sometimes we ask them for help in many places. And the gentleman in the home of President Gu of the Bonded Area Branch of Bank of China is the leader of the tax bureau..."
"Okay, Xiumei, I'll listen to you. Let's have a meal with Bank of China in the evening!"
Seeing Wu Xiumei say this, Li Xiaofan couldn't directly object. He also understood her difficulties as the head of the Mingzhou company. She had to take care of all aspects and everything.
In the evening, the dinner hosted by Sun Qingguo, the head of the Mingzhou branch of Bank of China, was arranged at the Mingzhou Donggang Hotel.
The Donggang Hotel, which opened in 1994, is the first four-star hotel in Mingzhou.
Li Xiaofan didn't have much good feelings about the bank. He would only "add icing on the cake" and never "help in times of trouble".
However, due to Wu Xiumei's face, Li Xiaofan still went out to socialize and drank a lot of wine with President Sun Qingguo's team.
After drinking, everyone started to call each other brothers.
...
After drinking, Li Xiaofan asked the driver to take him back to his uncle's house in Ningdong County.
There is no place like home, he still likes to live in his uncle and aunt's house, where he feels at home.
After returning home, his aunt made a cup of honey water for Li Xiaofan and said:
"Xiaofan, your aunt in Mingzhou called you yesterday and said that it is your grandfather's birthday at the beginning of next month, and asked you to attend your grandfather's birthday dinner when you are free..."