Brilliant Years 1991

Chapter 96 An unexpected acquaintance

"One million dollars? Sure, no problem! Where can I pay it? Hongkong? No problem!"

After meeting and chatting, it turned out that this was not a difficult matter for Jin Zhiqiang. As for the fact that once the money was exchanged and converted into RMB, he would not be able to bring it back to China as foreign currency for settlement in the future, let alone record it in the account, it was obvious that others had solutions.

"But I have to make one thing clear. You are an old friend, but there are some rules I cannot break. Nine to one, plus a 1% service fee - the service fee is collected over there!"

"No problem, this price is fine!"

In other words, if Cao Yukun wants to exchange one million dollars, he needs to pay a service fee of ten thousand dollars to the bank personnel who provide services on the Hongkong side, and then pay nine million RMB to Jin Zhiqiang.

This is already a very cheap price.

For him, he decided on the spot to exchange it for 120 million dollars directly!

The business process was easy to negotiate and the transaction was not difficult. Cao Yukun went to withdraw cash on the spot and brought back a large amount of cash. With the current domestic regulatory capabilities, there is almost no supervision. This kind of capital flow could not be noticed by anyone at all. So after verifying his capital, he successfully got an IOU for 120 million US dollars from Jin Zhiqiang, which not only had a handwritten signature on it, but also his private identification as collateral.

In the future, anyone with this note can go to the Bank of China Building in Hongkong to "collect debts."

After finishing the business, Jin Zhiqiang was particularly friendly and gave Cao Yukun an extra 3,000 Hong Kong dollars in cash, saying it was for use after getting off the plane. Cao Yukun was not polite and just thanked him and accepted the money.

It was already past noon, and Jin Zhiqiang immediately said, "We haven't seen each other for a long time. You can do whatever you want at noon. Let's go to Dali Palace to have a simple meal in the evening!"

However, Cao Yukun waved his hand and said, "Next time, I can't stay for a few days. I will be back soon. I will definitely come back next time!"

So Jin Zhiqiang didn't force it, but just smiled, and reminded him frivolously: "You can play with this thing for a while, but don't get addicted! It's just tens of millions, we have a lot of money, but if you get addicted, you can't play it a few times, and it's gone!"

Cao Yukun was stunned for a moment before he realized what he was talking about, and immediately burst out laughing.

Patting the IOU in his pocket, he said with a smile: "That's all, I'll be back soon after I've had my fill!"

In fact, he could talk to him about exports right now, but Cao Yukun was reluctant to alert the enemy - he went to Hongkong to sell things, and to import things from China, he naturally had to go through foreign trade, but considering that he did not have a reliable agent in Hongkong, he had to set up an entity to import things, and then he could give up the distribution rights in this port. So, since he wanted to set up an entity and import his own things, why did he have to go through an extra procedure and let Jin Zhiqiang get involved?
Register an entity company in Hongkong, then propose to purchase from a specific company in the mainland, and the mainland company will take the relevant certificates to the trading company - only until this step will Jin Zhiqiang's face be needed.

…………

After a quick conversation, Cao Yukun went downstairs and found a place to have lunch. After hesitating for a while, he did not go to the Dali Palace, nor to Ahong Tea Restaurant, and he did not even go to see the small villa he rented. He directly asked Du Xuehong to take him to the airport. Fortunately, he bought a flight ticket to the airport at 5 pm on the spot.

So he boarded the plane to Hongkong alone.

It was already quite late when the plane landed, so I didn't get to see the thrilling scene of the plane landing at Kai Tak Airport that I later saw on a certain audio platform. After leaving the arrival hall, Cao Yukun gave up taking a taxi and, with his poor Cantonese and the help of the signboards, he easily waited for the airport bus.

Even on the airport bus, he sat very carefully - the security at the airport in this era is not that bad, but if you say it is good, don't have too high expectations for it.

The final stop of the airport bus was Tsim Sha Tsui, and it happened to land at the parking lot of the Empire Hotel. After getting off the bus, Cao Yukun walked straight into this old hotel without any hesitation. In his previous life, he came to Hong Kong for tourism and stayed here once. At that time, he thought it was not too expensive, but this time he had to admit that in this day and age, for people from the mainland, this place is really considered high-consumption.

Superior King Room 319 HKD per night!

Converted into RMB, it is about 400 yuan - four months' salary for an ordinary worker!
The next morning, he took a taxi to the Bank of China and called the number given by Jin Zhiqiang downstairs. He contacted the person and was accompanied throughout the process. He opened an account with the Bank of China and then confirmed that the $120 million in cash had been deposited into the account. Cao Yukun took out another $ in cash, of which $ was paid to the middleman and the rest was exchanged for Hong Kong dollars, a total of more than $, close to $. Only then did he feel relaxed.

Start touring Hong Kong Island.

Of course, his way of sightseeing is definitely different from that of ordinary tourists.

In fact, when he relaxed and took a casual walk on the street, he soon discovered that Hong Kong Island in the early 1990s had not changed much from what it looked like 30 years later. At most, there were fewer new buildings, but there were also a few more old buildings.

Gazing from afar, there aren't that many tall buildings in the residential area - Cao Yukun's knowledge in this area is a bit lacking, and he doesn't know when the real heyday of Hong Kong's real estate industry was.

However, my blind guess is that the real outbreak time should be around the 1990s, because Hong Kong Island during this period had the most active and relatively developed economy. Even if it rises again after that, it will only follow the economy, and there will not be a cliff-like growth compared to last year like this year.

Just like the real explosive growth in the country, it mainly occurred in two waves, namely 08 and 16. At other times, it was just normal growth following the market.

Of course, even if the Hong Kong real estate boom has not yet arrived or has already passed, no matter what, the prosperity of Hong Kong Island at that time was indeed enough to amaze every mainlander who had just arrived.

There are already large supermarkets, and all kinds of small and medium-sized retail stores are everywhere. The variety of goods in the supermarkets is extremely rich - the beverage section alone is enough to keep a country bumpkin from the mainland looking around for an hour.

Of course, small and medium-sized retail stores on the roadside should also be considered.

In short, just looking at the crowdedness of the beverage market here, it is not optimistic.

The two major colas are certainly still giants, but you can actually see all kinds of drinks from Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and even Japan. A rough estimate is that there are more than 30 brands alone, and all kinds of beverages add up to probably hundreds of them - at least for now, in fact, many Southeast Asian countries, especially the so-called four little tigers, are more developed than the mainland!
However, what needs to be done still needs to be done.

There is no need to imagine this matter too optimistically, but in fact, as long as a little achievement is made, the benefits that can be brought by this market here will far exceed the hard work of squeezing out a little from the families of urban workers in the inland areas - the consumption power of the six or seven million people here is incomparable to that of a large province with a population of tens of millions in the country!

He strolled around until about one in the afternoon, ate a bowl of beef offal noodles at a roadside shop, returned to the hotel to rest for a while and organize his thoughts, then took a taxi across the harbour to Sheung Wan on Hong Kong Island.

This is not difficult to find out. The high-end law firms and accounting firms in Hong Kong are generally located in Central and Sheung Wan on the island. Just pick one that looks large and go in, and say you want to consult about starting a company. You will immediately notice your accent, but the service attitude is quite good, so you will soon meet a lawyer named Fang Zhihao.

He is in his early thirties and looks energetic. What's rare is that he can speak Mandarin, although it's not very authentic.

Things are not complicated. Hong Kong encourages entrepreneurship. The registered capital only requires 10,000 Hong Kong dollars, and there is no capital verification. So in theory, as long as you can afford the various registration fees, you can start a company even if you don’t have a penny.

Lawyer Ah Hao quickly gave a detailed quotation.

Business registration fees, lawyer service fees and the like are all expected, and the requirement to have at least one public office address for registration is also normal. However, there is another item that seems quite novel - there is another expense, which is the need to appoint a licensed secretarial company as the legal secretary!
After Ah Hao explained it carefully for a while, Cao Yukun finally understood that the Hongkong government stipulated that Hongkong Co., Ltd. must have a Hongkong legal secretary, who must be a local natural person or legal person in Hongkong. He is responsible for providing the legal secretary, and generally provides the registered address and handles official correspondence documents.

The legal secretary is equivalent to the spokesperson of the overseas person in Hongkong. The legal secretary does not have direct control or ownership over the company, but if problems occur in the company, the legal secretary must bear certain responsibilities.

Therefore, he is completely different from a secretary in the ordinary sense. Instead, he feels more like a domestic corporate legal person - Cao Yukun had never run a company in his previous life. Anyway, at least in his opinion, there is no difference.

Of course, as long as you are willing to pay, the law firm can do it directly for you.

As long as you are willing to pay, they can even take care of the entire company for you, from registration to renting a building to decoration to purchasing office supplies and even recruiting. There is nothing they cannot solve.

The key is money!

According to his own needs, the most basic agency matters were negotiated, and both parties quickly established a contract, signed and paid the money. From now on, Cao Yukun could think of a few more company names.

As long as the company name is not stuck with a duplicate during registration, the other party promises to set up the new company within three days.

After the deal was done, Ah Hao happily saw Cao Yukun off, and while walking, they agreed on a time and place to meet tomorrow. He then walked him all the way to the elevator and helped press the elevator button. He even stood there and watched Cao Yukun go after the elevator door closed, smiling.

However, after going down two floors, a middle-aged man in the elevator stared at Cao Yukun for a while, and suddenly spoke in Mandarin, "Mr. Kun?"

(End of this chapter)