Return to 1958 and build a century-old giant

Chapter 831 The Birth of Transformers

The top leadership in the central government certainly wants to seriously manage the joint venture, but those below them may not. Currently, China is facing a severe shortage of foreign exchange, so they naturally hope to export as much of the products from the joint venture factories as possible, while the domestic demand is naturally as low as possible.

If it were some essential products that couldn't be produced domestically, Yang Wendong wouldn't be worried; but Coca-Cola and instant noodles aren't high-tech industries, and domestic companies will be able to produce them in the future, and they aren't necessities, so he had to be wary of that.

“I understand.” Zhou Haoran knew his boss’s bottom line, which made the subsequent negotiations much easier. He then said, “There is another problem. The mainland insists on using their own workers to be transferred to the joint venture factory, and we are already aware of the situation of some of the mainland workers.”
According to mainland policy, once these workers arrive, we cannot dismiss them; we still need to negotiate with them on many things. They are even more difficult to deal with than labor unions in the United States. I disagree with this, but the mainland side is not giving in either.

“Workers in the mainland are now strictly protected by law, so we can’t touch them,” Yang Wendong said with a smile. “But I have a solution.”

Zhou Haoran quickly asked, "What method?"

This matter has been a headache for him for a long time, but neither side is willing to back down; as far as he knows, many foreign companies are stuck at this point.
Yang Wendong said, "You should know that many factories in the mainland are not doing well and can't pay wages, or pay very little, right?"

“Yes.” Zhou Haoran nodded.

While workers now enjoy a high status in the mainland, there's nothing that can be done if factories are unprofitable and have no money. Even the most skilled cook can't make a meal without rice, so the only options are to delay wages or cut other benefits.
Even the domestic reform and opening up began because the economic system was simply inadequate, and the only option was to gradually rely on foreign technology, capital, and business concepts to improve the domestic economic environment.

Yang Wendong continued, "Then it's simple. We won't hire any workers. Instead, we'll borrow people from other state-owned enterprises. But if the borrowed people have a bad attitude, we can send them back."

"Does Mr. Yang mean that we should improve the treatment and then retain the elite workers?" Zhou Haoran was also a smart man, and he immediately understood after hearing Yang Wendong's two questions.

Yang Wendong said, "Yes, as long as we can provide a stable salary or good benefits here, like in Hong Kong where we occasionally get some food, that's fine."

"If the conditions are good, we can definitely retain the best workers, and we won't fire the less capable ones; we can just return them to their original companies. This avoids legal issues, right?"

Many workers in mainland China do indeed just coast along, but there are definitely some with decent attitudes.

If it were like Hong Kong, a normal recruitment system could be used for screening. However, in mainland China, workers cannot be dismissed or even punished, so an additional elimination system has to be adopted.

As for offering higher wages and benefits, that's not a problem at all. With current wages in mainland China, even a slight increase wouldn't be comparable to Hong Kong or even Malaysia, so it's not a big deal. However, it would avoid getting involved in legal disputes in mainland China.

"Yang Sheng is truly amazing; he even came up with such a method." Zhou Haoran's tone was full of respect.

"Haha." Yang Wendong laughed and said, "Let's go with this method and speed up the negotiations with the domestic side. I also hope that the Coca-Cola and instant noodle projects can be finalized before the end of the year."

Historically, how foreign companies deal with mainland workers has been a major headache for many foreign investors, including Hong Kong capitalists and European and American investors. After all, mainland law clearly stipulates many rules that are incomprehensible to the Western world.
Later, I don't know who came up with this method, and then all foreign-funded enterprises did it, and the problem was solved;
However, with the opening of foreign-owned enterprises in 86 and the large-scale unemployment of workers in the 90s, the working class was naturally reduced to slaves after the law was amended.
“Okay, I’ll take care of the other issues as soon as possible,” Zhou Haoran replied.

Yang Wendong then asked, "How is He Guoyuan doing? Do you know?"

Although He Guoyuan belongs to Glory Electronics, his main work is in China, so he has been following Zhou Haoran for some time now.

While I have confidence in the future founder of ATI, I still need to know the specifics.

Zhou Haoran said, "He Sheng learned business negotiation very quickly, but he didn't participate much in the Watsons project afterward. Instead, he visited various electronics factories in China. I'm not very clear about the specifics."

"Okay, that's settled then. You can go ahead and do your work," Yang Wendong nodded.

In the future, the electronics industry will basically be dominated by the United States. Although Hong Kong can utilize talent from the United States and the United Kingdom, it will definitely not be able to compete with Silicon Valley.
At this time, if we want to develop the electronics industry well, we need to make full use of the talent and enterprises in the mainland. Although we still can't compare with Silicon Valley, we at least have some basic conditions.
Putting everything else aside, Silicon Valley takes a high-end approach, while the mainland and Hong Kong can take a cost-effective approach, competing in a different market segment, which is also a good option.

However, the premise is that mainland companies can be integrated. He Guoyuan's task is to find potential suppliers, and then the group can invest in and support them appropriately so that they can become part of Honor Electronics' industrial chain in the mainland in the future. Only in this way can true mutual benefit be achieved.

In 79, the mainland was also gradually testing the reform and opening-up policy, and it was very conservative in many aspects. It also accepted investments selectively, which was relatively troublesome.
The company's request for a joint venture in the cola industry was also due to the consideration that Coca-Cola and Pepsi could not take the lead in the market. Although all three companies have entered the mainland market through imports, they are subject to quotas. Only by building factories on a large scale in the mainland can they be considered to have officially entered the mainland market.
Coca-Cola's profit margin may seem low, but it is a prime example of a product sold at a low price. Once a company dominates the market, it becomes very difficult for others to gain a foothold.
Now that the fundamental issues have been resolved, the project needs to be implemented as soon as possible. As the first foreign-invested cola factory in mainland China, Very Cola will surely be able to take the lead in the market.

Of course, Yang Wendong's ambition is not to monopolize the mainland cola market. If he can share the pie with Pepsi and Coca-Cola in the future and divide the market into three, that would be good enough.

A week later, Yang Wendong also received news that Zhou Haoran's negotiations with the mainland side were basically completed.

Watsons will invest US$1200 million and US$800 million respectively in joint ventures with local state-owned enterprises in Beijing and Shanghai to build Coca-Cola and instant noodle factories.

Yanjing's chosen location is in Chaoyang District. Yang Wendong has seen the map and it is roughly within the future Third Ring Road. The factory site covers a total of 5 square meters.

The site chosen for Shanghai is in Luwan District of Puxi, which is the future HP District, near Guanshengyuan Food Factory, which is also a joint venture with it, with a land area of ​​3.6 square meters.

After finalizing the arrangements on the mainland, Zhou Haoran sent the documents back to Hong Kong overnight. They needed to be reviewed by headquarters and signed by Yang Wendong. At the Kang Le Building, Zhou Haoran reported on the work that had been completed.
"Wow, that's 8.6 square meters, almost a million square feet!" Yang Wendong remarked with considerable emotion after seeing the document.

He had secretly asked Zhou Haoran that the factory site must be in a prime location and have a large area, even if it meant relocating the locals, he had to acquire a large plot of land.

Zhou Haoran is also a native of Hong Kong. He has experienced many surges in Hong Kong property prices since childhood. Knowing that Yang Wendong is optimistic about the future of the mainland market, he understands what Yang means.

Zhou Haoran laughed and said, "Actually, we don't need to take the initiative. The mainland side hopes that we can build it in a densely populated area so that it will be convenient for workers to commute to get off work."
Mr. Yang, you haven't been to Yanjing. The local public transportation is actually quite poor. Although bicycles are the main mode of transportation, there are still frequent traffic jams because the roads are too narrow, especially when crossing bridges, where you have to wait for ages.

Moreover, for mainland China today, land really doesn't mean much; even in Beijing and Shanghai, they don't seem to care about it.

"With such a large area, there must be demolition involved, right?" Yang Wendong asked again, something he wouldn't normally concern himself with.

Zhou Haoran said, "Yes, there is demolition. The locals are very happy to be able to get demolition because we offer that the house area will be expanded to 1.5 times after demolition, and it will be a new house."
Because it's a unified building development, it has running water, dedicated toilets, and shower rooms. These basic conditions are based on the minimum requirements in Hong Kong, but in Yanjing, they're considered very good.

"Okay, that's fine. After headquarters reviews it, if there are no problems, I'll sign it off." Yang Wendong smiled.
Although many mainlanders ridiculed Hong Kong's cramped living conditions in his previous life, Yang Wendong also felt that Hong Kong's houses were too small.

In this era, the mainland is far inferior to Hong Kong. In the countryside of the mainland, the per capita living space is not bad, but the house structure is much worse. Not to mention concrete, there are not many bricks. Most of them are built with stones, soil and wood, and the roofs are still thatched.
In mainland cities, living space is even more cramped, even worse than in Hong Kong. In the past, many courtyard houses had a dozen or even dozens of households crammed together. Moreover, there weren't many high-quality courtyard houses; most people lived in communal houses.

Housing allocated by factories or the government usually takes a long time and is only available to highly skilled individuals or those with connections.

It's amazing to encounter such a generous company as Watsons, which expanded the area by 50% during the demolition process, and made it a new house with much better amenities. Many people can only dream of such a thing.

And for them, it's not actually a loss. After all, the new location after the demolition is just nearby, and once the real estate economy takes off, they'll still make a fortune.
Of course, Yang Wendong was also very happy. He had easily acquired a prime location of a million square feet of land in the mainland. Although it was an industrial site and he only had half of the property rights, he could find a way to buy the other half after 86.

In theory, cola and instant noodles will remain hard currency in the mainland market for decades to come. Only when the social economy develops to a sufficient level and people start to worry about high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar will they consider these two foods junk food.
In reality, for the poor, these were highly nutritious foods. If there had been enough of these two items in the 50s, the Americans could have been driven into the sea.
Before the establishment of special economic zones in mainland China, my investment plans in the mainland were limited to these: Shekou on one side, exploratory projects in Beijing and Shanghai on the other, and the pre-investment investigations conducted by the department headed by Ho Kwok-yuen in China.

When domestic policies become more open after 80, the four special economic zones are established, and one has already made a profit from gold, that will be the best time for large-scale investment.

Time flew by and it was early November;

Kang Le Building:

Wei Zetao and Wu Hailin arrived at Yang Wendong's office together, bringing with them a trolley similar to those used in hotels.

"Are these all the Transformers toys?" Yang Wendong also stood up and walked to the middle, next to the small car.

Wei Zetao replied, "Yes, we have completed the design of more than a dozen Transformers Autobots from Wu Sheng's comics. They can be transformed and combined to turn cars into robots, or robots into cars. What do you think?"

As Wei Zetao explained, he manually operated the robots, which gradually transformed into cars, trucks, and other shapes in his hands.

Yang Wendong then tried it out himself, and after a while nodded and said, "Very good, it's quite easy to change. These research and development must have been very difficult, right?"

Wei Zetao said, "Yes, it is quite difficult. Although it is a toy, it involves a lot of mechanical design work. I had to invite a lot of mechanical experts from Japan to make the sample."

"Have all the patents been registered?" Yang Wendong asked.

“It’s already registered. Mr. Wu has also registered the copyright,” Wei Zetao said with a smile.

Yang Wendong then looked at Wu Hailin and asked, "Old Wu, is the Transformers story ready too?"

“It’s ready. Here I have the story script and the first chapter of the comic. Please take a look.” Wu Hailin quickly handed the materials to Yang Wendong: “As long as you have no problems, we plan to officially release the comic next month.”

"Should we release it in Hong Kong first? But the background is the United States. Do you think that's feasible?" Yang Wendong asked rhetorically as he looked at the document.

Wu Hailin said, "There will be such issues, but the background cannot be set in Hong Kong. Only the United States can handle the alien battle plot, so we can only make Hong Kong or Asian consumers adapt to it."

Wei Zetao replied, "Actually, it's fine. In recent years, Japanese manga has started to sell well in Hong Kong and Asia, and since it's set in Japan, people are getting used to it."

PS: Ask for monthly ticket

(End of this chapter)