My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 468 The Road Has Widened
The Santana should naturally be better than the Cherokee.

Even if Wei Dong now knows about the Cherokee, he knows nothing about the situation on the Santana side.

But at least I had dealt with Shanghai Vacuum Electronics Factory for more than a year. Even though it had the problems of state-owned factories, Shanghai's industrial base was definitely far superior to that of Beijing.

Its positioning as a political and economic center is clear.

However, the overall gap and the problem of foreign exchange shortage remain unresolved.

Wei Dong was asked to reveal his practices at the Pingjing Automobile joint venture, including the idea of ​​establishing a domestic production community proposed by the Economic Commission.

"In the field of computers, there are indeed some insurmountable gaps in manufacturing processes. It is relatively easier to catch up in automobile manufacturing. Although engines, transmissions, and transfer cases are difficult, there are definitely gaps in processes, materials, and especially durability. However, the localization rate can certainly be increased as much as possible. Even if we reduce the purchase of foreign parts, we can effectively reduce the use of foreign exchange."

"But the problem lies in the production of these parts. Because I have been involved in the transformation of third-tier factories, the employees of state-owned factories are indeed less enthusiastic about this development."

Nonsense, it doesn't matter how much or how little you make this. It's a state-owned factory that the government guarantees anyway. It's all about seniority and rank; ability isn't the most important thing.

Even if piecework is emphasized now, it's still about assembling components, whether they're imported or domestic, so why bother with that?

So Wei Dong's idea was actually a consensus that came later: "Large-scale stamping, welding, painting, and assembly can be done in state-owned factories, but I want to develop parts and components as much as possible in private and private enterprises. They have more motivation. I used to have some business dealings in industrial manufacturing in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. Jiangzhou is now booming in motorcycle parts. I want to see if we can solve this problem from this angle."

This idea is quite common ten or twenty years from now, but it's somewhat shocking now.

The government spent huge sums of money to import automobile production lines, but in the end, private manufacturers took the lead.
There's a question about what surname is involved here.

Seeing everyone's expressions, Wei Dong quickly explained, "It's not a question of who has to do it. The localization rate of parts is also achieved by hundreds or thousands of supporting factories. Each screw and plastic part we combine reduces the foreign exchange consumption of importing components by the number of successful and qualified parts suppliers. More importantly, through this large-scale localization project, a large amount of industrial manufacturing will be upgraded."

Look at this level of awareness!
Security guards twenty or thirty years from now will know that industrial upgrading is necessary.

Of course, the tax authorities understand this importance even more.

The city officials were quite satisfied with the young comrade: "But the supporting role of private enterprises and private companies is uncontrollable, especially since the system is too loose and prone to problems."

When Wei Dong was in Beijing, he told the Economic Commission, "It's an exploration, and it won't delay the start of the major campaign. Now that Cherokee has foreign exchange and border trade indicators to support it, there's much more room for maneuver."

That's when everyone's eyes lit up: "What are the border trade quotas?"

Let Wei Dong explain the barter system in this way.

The shrewd businessman from Shanghai immediately figured it out: what border trade and barter were just special foreign trade permits that allowed for the separate export of auto parts, with all the foreign exchange going into the parts company's account.

They were all envious: "What are you selling?"

Wei Dong initially tried to evade the question by saying, "Cowboy jacket, jeans."

The expert in charge of economics said: "The textile trade is going to bring in tens of millions of dollars. That's a huge amount. It's impacting the quotas under the MFA bilateral agreement. Citibank already has restrictions on the quantity of our textiles. You're squeezing out the textile allocations for each province. Yes, I especially remember that sweaters and jeans are sensitive commodities. Is this acceptable?"

Wei Dong scratched his head: "We went there after taking a shower..."

These guys are all...?!

Isn't this quite common in thirty or forty years?
Actually, it was purely by chance that Wei Dong and his group managed to achieve this. Later, after Lao Zhang and his group obediently followed the exit procedures and started their journey, they returned to him only to discover that things had gone wrong.

Citibank, in its high and mighty manner, indeed picks and chooses among the cheap goods offered as tribute from all over the world. Taking advantage of the fact that there's not much to sell in mainland China, and that they mainly rely on selling textiles to earn some foreign exchange, they exert great effort to restrict and suppress prices.

Therefore, the quotas in mainland China can only be allocated to foreign trade enterprises in various provinces and cities, making them extremely valuable.

As a result, from the first time they sold to Jiao Pen, Wei Dong and his team were deprived of quotas and had to go through Hong Kong, where they would label the products under the Colorful Denim brand under the guise of processing with supplied materials, and then resell them to Japan and North America.

It's an export from a Hong Kong company, so it has nothing to do with the quota in mainland China.

As things have progressed, Wei Dong has even instructed Qin Yuye to ship all his jeans from Hong Kong to Japan, then re-export them to North America. After two rounds of shipping, they've all ended up being exported jeans to Japan.

Thirty years later, a trade war is already a basic practice for foreign trade companies. Wei Dong already sees North America as the entire market. Qin Zhiming also has several younger brothers in Wengerwa, so transshipment through Canada and Massachusetts is not out of the question.

But the economics manager pressed on: "Quantity? That doesn't change the fact that the sheer volume is having a huge impact on the North American market. You mentioned last time that your jeans can be exported there for $20 each, which is a scale of several million pairs. How many people do they have? Your volume is just too big."

Rang Weidong then admitted: "Our current annual sales volume in the domestic market is about six or seven million units. In fact, our export sales are mainly in North America and Japan, which amount to about five or six million US dollars. As for the remaining gap... I want to sell health products in overseas markets."

These people finally showed a look of utter astonishment, as if their hair stood on end: "Huh?"

What health supplements?

Wei Dong started thinking about it as soon as he received the quota.

His thinking was completely different from others; he had no intention of focusing on maximizing jeans exports.

"Apple has a factory in Shanghai, and we also earn some foreign exchange from the electronic devices we export overseas. We also have a bioengineering base in Shangzhou. The new city construction we just mentioned is largely centered around this bioengineering plant. We plant and purchase corn for poverty alleviation in the region, and then produce a variety of biological products, including SOD oxidase, which is currently being developed for production in the form of cosmetics, oral liquids or capsules."

This has a bit of a technological edge to it.

Back in 1985, it was already quite an achievement for ordinary manufacturers to find export trade channels and understand how to make money internationally. The whole country was either making textiles or exporting raw materials and handicrafts.

Textiles accounted for a quarter of the total, making it the largest category. Oil exports surprisingly accounted for 20%.

Rice, tea, and canned goods accounted for 18%;

Light industrial products such as toys, footwear, and plastic products account for 15%;

Coal, rare earth, and steel exports accounted for 10%.

These categories make up about 80-90% of the total; other items, such as handicrafts, machinery, and electronic products, are just scattered bits and pieces.

I never would have guessed that this guy would actually come up with a high-tech... skincare and health supplement.

This track is absolutely unique.

The expressions on these people's faces are hard to describe.

If you call it metaphysics, these past few years have truly been a peak period for life sciences across the country, with legends about qigong and health products popping up everywhere.

But if you really want to call it science, it seems to be missing something.

The key question is, can this really generate foreign exchange?

The two things that Wei Dong was asked to do were especially important to Shanghai.

Exploring the localization rate of automotive parts;

Foreign exchange earnings that support this domestic production;

These two issues are even more urgent than the previously mentioned planning for foreign-related communities.

Therefore, they had no choice but to make a soft promise: "If... the exploration of localization rate by private enterprises is fruitful, we hope to assist Santana in participating as well, especially in this border trade foreign exchange, which is planned to be imported and exported from Shanghai, right? We can still provide various forms of support as much as possible."

City leaders also demonstrated foresight: "The work on increasing the localization rate of imported cars is not just a matter for Shanghai, but also a core step in the development of the national industry, and it is worth exploring more ways to achieve this."

To make Wei Dong understand: "Yes, yes, the foreign exchange generated by the Apple computer factory will definitely go through Shanghai. Of course, I don't know whether the foreign exchange quota can be allocated to Shanghai. In addition, as long as other foreign trade models can meet the import quota of Cherokee parts, they can definitely support the Santana production line. This is our common responsibility."

This statement satisfied the city.

When asked what Wei Dong needed, he replied simply: "Sell me a Santana at market price. My idea is the same as with the Cherokee. We'll have our auto repair team in Jiangzhou completely disassemble it, down to the most basic screws and washers, and then find alternative manufacturers for each part. Of course, you can also provide us with a list of Santana models that can be produced domestically, to try to avoid internal competition as much as possible."

Of course, we'll arrange it for him immediately.

After taking over the Santana from this side, I learned that the localization rate of the Santana is currently about 7%.

Tires, radios, horns, exterior antennas, and small signs are just a few insignificant parts.

Even so, it's still higher than the Cherokee.

Pingqi even learned about the concepts of off-road tires and radial tires by following the Cherokee production line.

Then, feeling quite pleased with himself, he immediately applied it to 212.

Anyway, Wei Dong was quite speechless.

But for the entire team promoting the localization rate, it was a feeling of jubilation.

We can actually connect the Cherokee in Beijing and the Santana in Shanghai.

Wei Dong reminded them that they should be prepared for harsh realities. The higher-ups were eager to resolve the issue of domestic production rates. No matter how hard you worked to source spare parts, regardless of compliance, the production line manufacturers were not very willing.

To them, this is all just looking for trouble.

Sure enough, the factory staff who received us were very welcoming. Although they were the Shanghai Tractor Factory a few years ago, they already had a polite and distant demeanor.

Visiting is fine, but don't even think about interfering with our production lines.

So arrogant.

These college graduates, who were generally two or three to seven or eight years older than Wei Dong, immediately expressed their admiration for their boss's uncanny foresight.

The man in his sixties was used to this situation and focused on leading his team to observe and learn on the imported production line. He even felt a sense of kinship when he met a German-speaking Han engineer.

Perhaps it's because Xiaodie's mother is in Hans?
Anyway, no one could have imagined that visiting the Santana production line would lead Wei Dong to this thought.

But he knew he would never go to Hans.

Once you've been abandoned, that door is closed forever.

(End of this chapter)