1988: Back to the human world for a few years

Chapter 360 Thousands of threads above and a needle below (1)

The system often makes fun of the four major teams of local authorities.

This vividly describes the characteristics of each team.

In the public's impression, the secretaries of various places are the squad leaders, and the mayors are the deputy squad leaders. The two sides work together and cooperate with each other. Then the deputies of the two teams are ranked in order.

But in fact, this statement is correct, but not entirely correct, or it has certain deviations.

If we follow the party ranking, there is nothing wrong with this order.

But rankings are rankings, and responsibilities are responsibilities;

At the city level, in most cases, the squad leader cannot and will not directly interfere with the work of the deputy squad leader. In reality, the third person in terms of power and responsibility is not the deputy secretary of the municipal party committee, but the executive deputy mayor.

The reason is very simple. The general manager is in charge of too many things. If he disagrees with some things, he won’t even have the opportunity to report and discuss them at the meeting!
This is a key position that is in charge of the city's most important financial auditing, personnel and other work, and assists in handling the work of the municipal government.

However, this kind of role similar to that of a "shopkeeper" is really difficult to play.

In this era where "officials are not humble, but the people are more respected",

In this period when the economy has not yet emerged from the cold winter,

In Dezhou, where local state-owned enterprises account for more than 90% of the economy, the economic activity of the old industrial zone continues to decline.

The position of executive is even more difficult to hold.

So when Ye Tao heard the secretary report that Vice President Yang of Dahua Company requested to meet with him, he immediately became very alert.

Although Dezhou is currently only a county-level city, he, as a general manager, is only a director-level cadre. According to the principle of reciprocity, even if Dahua Company requests a meeting, it should be their general manager Ding Xiang, who is also a director-level cadre. For a guy like Yang Mo who holds the position of deputy general manager but is actually only a section-level cadre, the four words "request for visit" should be used when meeting him.

But he didn't feel anything wrong.

Yang Mo's power and influence have long been beyond the reach of a mere section-level cadre;

Apart from other things, in the past few months of in-depth cooperation with the competent authorities in Dezhou, the other party has fulfilled the original promise of "investment amount of no less than 6 million by the end of this year" in another form, and the actual investment amount has greatly exceeded this figure;

Not only that, the commercial demonstration zone that seemed to appear out of thin air has begun to gradually revitalize the internal economic liquidity of this small and medium-sized city. It has also created more than 4 new jobs locally through hundreds of extended projects... and this is under the premise that Dongying and Lanling have also gotten a piece of the pie.

A ruthless person like this, let alone requesting a meeting with him on an equal footing, even if he knocked on the door of the mayor's office without any prior notice, the mayor would immediately put down the important things in his hands and invite him to sit down and have tea with a smile.

………………

"Director Ye, I heard that Dezhou is working hard to upgrade from a county-level city to a prefecture-level city?"

As soon as the business flattery ended, Yang Mo said something abruptly that seemed completely unrelated at first glance.

Ye Tao's eyes wavered when he heard this, and then he laughed: "It's been so many years, and our Dezhou is still just a county-level city. We have been working hard every year to upgrade it, but nothing has happened... Mr. Yang, please stop laughing at us!"

As the country intends to rapidly advance the urbanization process, in recent years, there are countless places that have been transformed from counties into cities, and cases of county-level cities being transformed into prefecture-level cities are also common.

But the situation in Texas is slightly special.

To put it simply, the DZ city that people in later generations know should be called the "Dezhou area" now, and the current DZ city should be accurately called the "Dezhou District" in later generations.

That’s right, “region” is both a geographical overview and an administrative system that was once widely used in the country. Today’s DZ city is just a county-level city under the Dezhou region. There is a huge difference between the two.

Seeing this, Yang Mo smiled slightly: "I heard that Laiwu bypassed Tai'an and went to the court to lobby, and also wanted to be promoted from a county-level city to a prefecture-level city. When the leaders of Tai'an found out, they were so angry that they smashed the cup?"

Ye Tao's eyelids twitched when he heard this, and he could only smile bitterly: "It turns out that Boss Yang also knows about this."

This is a well-known case. Since Laiwu was upgraded from a county to a city in 83, it has been administered by Tai'an. As Laiwu's economy has taken off rapidly, Tai'an has even transferred Zhaizi Township and Huangzhuang Town of Yiyuan County to Laiwu.

As a result, Laiwu developed so rapidly that it was no longer content to be just a county-level city, so it simply bypassed Tai'an and wanted to be upgraded to a prefecture-level city. It was successfully upgraded in 1992, which really made the leaders of Tai'an very angry... I will approve it for you tomorrow. Therefore, Laiwu started to take action as early as the end of last year, so many people in the Qilu system knew about this directly or indirectly.

Yang Mo nodded with a smile: "Although this matter is somewhat unreasonable, if I were the leader of Laiwu, I would do the same... After all, a county-level city is not much different from a county, and is completely incomparable to a prefecture-level city. Laiwu's economy is developing so well now, why should it be wronged to be a county-level city and be managed by Tai'an, the poor big brother?"

In addition to the difference in actual administrative levels, county-level cities and prefecture-level cities also have very different rights and interests.

One very important difference is the jurisdiction over subordinate counties:
Although county-level cities nominally have jurisdiction over subordinate counties, the financial power and planning between the two are relatively independent. In essence, they are another city, so everything often needs to be discussed.

The prefecture-level cities use their construction land quotas, approval authority, and the relationship between leaders to control the counties under their jurisdiction.

But it is undeniable that the control of prefecture-level cities over their subordinate counties is not at the same level as that of county-level cities... The resources they can control are not of the same order of magnitude, so their weight is naturally incomparable.

Ye Tao's brain was working fast, thinking about why Yang Mo suddenly brought up this matter, and what this statement meant, but he smiled: "The reason why Laiwu has this confidence is that you, Mr. Yang, have also made a great contribution... The total export volume of the beer export project you are doing exceeded 1700 million US dollars last year, right? So much foreign exchange has really added fuel to Laiwu's economic development."

Generally speaking, there are indicators for county land upgrades.

In addition to the minimum population requirements...

Either your rank is high enough, at least directly under the provincial government;
Either your geographical location is important and is located at a key location in the country's next strategic planning;

Either the economy is developed enough, and the per capita income, tax revenue, and GDP indicators are all very impressive.

Obviously, Laiwu, where both industry and foreign trade are developing simultaneously, belongs to the last category. Therefore, although Ye Tao's words are a bit joking, they are not false... Nowadays, there are many places in Qilu with industrial bases, but there are few projects like Laiwu that can earn tens of millions of dollars a year by borrowing a brewery.

Yang Mo smiled at the man in front of him who was full of vigor and nodded gently: "Director Ye, you are joking. Our central enterprises have the responsibility to help the local economy. However, as the ice-breaking journey between China and Japan and China and Europe is going more and more smoothly, the volume of private export trade in Qilu has gradually increased. I heard that many places are taking advantage of this wave of recovery to vigorously promote foreign trade while planning to apply for county-level upgrading... We in Dezhou have to speed up."

When Ye Tao heard this, his expression changed slightly.

Although there are clear standards for being promoted to a prefecture-level city, there is also a crucial potential prerequisite... that is, there cannot be too many prefecture-level units in the province. If you already have more than 20 prefecture-level cities and above in the province, then it is basically unlikely for a prefecture to be promoted to a city.

In today's Qi and Lu, although there are not many cities above the prefecture level, there are at least seven or eight; therefore, with the general trend of foreign trade recovering, compared with those coastal cities with locational advantages, if Dezhou wants to squeeze into the top 20, located in the northwest inland, it really does not have much advantage.

"Boss Yang, what do you think?"

Ye Tao did not hide anything and went straight to the topic started by Yang Mo.

He knew very well that with Yang Mo's identity as a central enterprise cadre and the other party's current influence, he would definitely not talk to him about such cross-border topics for no reason... Although China has always had a tradition of central enterprise cadres serving in local competent units, no matter what, the other party is nominally only a section-level official, and is still a long way from such a thing.

Yang Mo laughed when he saw this, but he took out a document from his briefcase and gently placed it on the coffee table.

"We, Dahua Company, and DZ City are deep cooperative partners who advance and retreat together. Therefore, we naturally hope that DZ City can be successfully upgraded to a prefecture-level city. After all, local and central enterprises are twins. Only when you make progress can we develop better... We have invested so much cost and energy in Dahua Industrial Park regardless of cost, so naturally we don't want to stop there after building a framework."

Yang Mo's words seemed to be intended to reassure Ye Tao, but in fact they were meant to sound a warning.

You have seen the strength of our Dahua Company. I have exceeded my original promise and attracted far more than 600 million yuan in investment from you. Not only have we built a commercial demonstration zone to start revitalizing your Texas economy, we have even created tens of thousands of jobs for you within a few months... Looking across the entire Qilu region, there are not many companies as sophisticated as ours, right?

But cooperation requires equality. You can’t always let me make unilateral efforts, right?

If Dezhou cannot be upgraded to a prefecture-level city and cannot help our Dahua Company coordinate more social resources and provide more assistance, then I'm sorry, people tend to go to high places and water flows to low places, and we Dahua Company may have to move... I believe that with the commercial demonstration zone as a successful case, those cities in the province that meet the requirements will only line up to welcome us to them.

After being struck by Yang Mo's words, Ye Tao, who seemed not to understand the meaning, still had a smile on his face, but the hairs on his back stood up.

If we only talk about the investment volume, although Dahua Company is important to DZ City, it is not as important as most people think.

Although Dezhou is only a county-level city now, it has no problem having an annual GDP of over 10 billion. Moreover, for an old industrial area like theirs, the problem lies elsewhere. As for foreign investment, it is certainly a welcome thing, but it is not a big deal if it is not there.

But the invisible integrated distribution platform built by Dahua Company based on the commercial demonstration zone is very important to them.

That's right!

For old industrial areas like Texas, the biggest challenge is not production or capital, but how to sell what is produced and then get new orders, thus embarking on a positive cycle.

Although the commercial demonstration zone set up by Dahua Company is currently mainly used to leverage the circulation of industries such as food, beverages, clothing, and Chinese herbal medicine, rather than the most unsalable industrial products in Texas;

But since the other party has set up areas for machinery, electrical appliance original parts and other items in the commodity trading zone, it means that the other party has already made plans to gradually leverage the circulation of industrial products.

Up to now, no one would think that the areas set up by Yang Mo were just superficial work. Since he set up these areas, he must be confident that he can revitalize this business!

Therefore, to some extent, the supply and demand relationship between DZ City and Dahua Company has undergone some subtle reversal.

At the beginning, the competent authorities in Texas acted like a big brother and provided support in terms of policies and industrial land in consideration of the 600 million yuan investment promised by Dahua Company... Strictly speaking, these things were requested by Dahua Company in a inferior manner.

But now, the competent authorities in Texas need to beg Dahua Company to help them solve the problem of a series of unsalable products, including industrial products, moving out of Texas, and help them further revitalize the economic activity in the city, and even help them use the market as a whip to gradually complete bottom-up, reverse-forced industrial upgrading.

Once Dahua Company moves, not only will all of this come to an end, but a city's originally smooth or even rising economic curve will suddenly take a sharp turn downward, and the consequences will be very serious!
Moreover, Ye Tao didn't doubt that Yang Mo was fooling him.

Drilling companies are notorious for their capriciousness.

In fact, Dahua Company did not choose Qingdao or Quancheng, but directly settled in Texas and spent hundreds of millions of dollars. In the eyes of outsiders, this was an extremely willful choice. If the other party was willful again and abandoned Texas and chose other cities after achieving extremely outstanding results, it would not be unimaginable.

The leaders in charge of DZ City have always known that, for them, Dahua Company is not important, what is important is Yang Mo as a person; the core asset of Dahua Company is not the billions of funds on the books, but Yang Mo's unique ideas, amazing business vision, and terrifying appeal to social capital.

That's why when Yang Mo had a conflict with the leaders in Dongying, no matter how powerful your Qilu Petroleum Administration Bureau is, it's none of my business! What I care about is Yang Mo, a person who can help me solve the problem, not your colorful things.

Therefore, when Yang Mo made this veiled warning, for people like Ye Tao who truly understood the economic problems of DZ City, the threat was even stronger than the formal letter from Dongying.

Dahua Company can just move away. Texas, a city with heavy assets, doesn't need your money. The drilling company is on Texas' territory anyway. When the time comes, you can use your connections to find a way to invite Yang Mo to be your military advisor.

But if Yang Mo himself wants to give up Texas, then there will be nothing you can do... This guy is the one who directly created the drilling company's reputation for being willful. If he himself is not happy about it, no matter how many connections you use, it will be useless.

………………

Various thoughts flashed through his mind like lightning. Ye Tao took a deep breath and shifted his gaze to the document on the coffee table.

"The results of the 1989 assessment indicators in three categories in DZ City in 3?"

Looking at this material that should not appear in the hands of outsiders, Ye Tao's heart was churning and his pupils shrank slightly.

Yang Mo,

What on earth do you want to do by coming here today?

(End of this chapter)