Chapter 279 Cooperation with the Hong Kong Government

Chapter 279 Cooperation with the Hong Kong Government

Chapter 279 Cooperation with the Hong Kong Government
Yang Wendong smiled and replied, "Don't worry, Governor, everything is going well with the Hong Kong Museum. Currently, the three-party team has roughly decided to choose a suitable location near Admiralty."

During this period, a team from the mainland, the UK and Changxing Group worked together to investigate various locations in Hong Kong to find a suitable location for the museum.

Although it is not a big undertaking, Yang Wendong is still quite concerned about it and regularly receives news on progress in this area.

Originally, the mainland team wanted to build the museum on the Kowloon Peninsula, mainly for the convenience of transportation. Hong Kong Island and Kowloon Peninsula need to change ships, which caused considerable trouble in the transportation of some antiques.

Later, Yang Wendong directly rejected this proposal. He knew that once the Hung Hom Tunnel was opened, this problem would no longer be a problem. Even if there was no tunnel or bridge, shipping by ship would only be a little troublesome.

Finally, in recent times, everyone in the team decided to build the museum near Admiralty, but the specific address has not yet been confirmed.

"Haha, good. Admiralty is in a good location and has a large population." Robert White said with a smile, "Please confirm the location as soon as possible. I will push for the subsequent land transaction to be completed as soon as possible."

Even though he wanted to complete the museum during his term of office, he knew that such a project would definitely require time for advance inspection.

"Okay, I also hope that this museum can be built as soon as possible." Yang Wendong nodded and agreed.

It is at this time that all kinds of coincidences have come together. Otherwise, if I wanted to build a public project museum, even if I proposed it myself and even if the Hong Kong government agreed, there would not be enough cultural relics.

Once it is built, given the size of Hong Kong, it is unlikely that there will be a second museum.

"Okay." Berridge nodded.

Yang Wendong said, "Mr. Governor, I came here to discuss with you the issue of water transportation from the mainland and the drought in Hong Kong."

"Well, this is indeed a big problem." Bai Liji also became worried and said, "I didn't expect the drought to become so serious."

Everyone wanted to live the last one or two years of his term in office in a normal and stable manner, but no one expected such a drought to occur in Hong Kong.

In comparison, he even hopes that what will happen is an economic crisis, because the emergence of an economic crisis is normal in itself, and the Hong Kong government does not need to intervene too much. It just needs to wait for the market to return to normal, as long as there is no bank run like last year.

However, drought involves the survival of a large number of ordinary people, and the Hong Kong government cannot ignore it. If this happens, not only will the position of British Hong Kong be lost, but problems may also arise in other parts of the Commonwealth.

Yang Wendong nodded and said, "Yes, so I plan to invest more money again to buy more second-hand cargo ships overseas so that I can use them to transport water to the mainland."

"Thank you Mr. Yang for your kindness. On behalf of the owner, the Hong Kong government and the 300 million citizens of Hong Kong, I would like to thank Mr. Yang." Robert Black said sincerely.

If we could get the full support of a shipping magnate, it would be much easier to alleviate the drought. At least, with enough ships, we could transport hundreds of thousands of tons of water to Hong Kong every month. Not to mention industry, at least the survival problems of ordinary people would be alleviated a lot.

Yang Wendong said with a smile: "This is what I should do. I made my fortune by relying on Hong Kong citizens. Now that Hong Kong is facing such difficulties, I should naturally help."

"Well, okay, I personally admire Mr. Yang's approach very much." Bai Liji paused and said, "Well, I can make you a promise. If the drought is alleviated in the future and you buy too many ships and suffer losses, I will ask the tax department to give your shipping company appropriate tax reductions.

This policy will be released while I am in office, and the reason will be because it helps solve the drought. I think whoever is the next governor will not overturn this policy. "

The Hong Kong government also needs to win over local Chinese, especially those who can help themselves or society, so it is normal for them to give certain preferential treatment.

"Thank you, Governor of Hong Kong." Yang Wendong said with a smile.

The Hong Kong government's low tax does not mean no tax, a little less is good;
Robert Black added: "Or the Hong Kong government can compensate you in other ways, such as real estate. This is much simpler. When this matter is over, we can negotiate the details."

The drought is not over yet, and it is still unknown to what extent Yang Wendong can provide help;
Only when things are over can we talk about it.

"No problem." Yang Wendong nodded, and then said: "But this is also a matter for the future. Right now we need to buy a large number of second-hand cargo ships, which also requires a lot of funds;

The Governor of Hong Kong may not know that second-hand cargo ships are generally not popular with banks, so I may need to use a large amount of funds directly, which will put me under great financial pressure. "

"Do you want HSBC or Standard Chartered to give you a loan in this regard?" Naturally, Robert White was a smart man and he knew Yang Wendong's intention as soon as he heard it.

But this is normal. When normal businessmen cooperate with the Hong Kong government, especially for public projects, the Hong Kong government will ask major banks to provide support.

Now Yang Wendong bought a boat, and the ostensible reason was to help solve the water shortage problem, which can also be considered a "public project."

"Yes, with their help, it is much easier. I can double the size of the cargo ship in a very short time." Yang Wendong said again.

Although he could mortgage his own funds to get support from HSBC or Standard Chartered, this would consume his own credit line, and if he used it too much, HSBC might not dare to continue accepting second-hand cargo ships as collateral.

But with the Hong Kong government's request, HSBC had to give face. After all, HSBC was able to become a "quasi-central bank" and make huge profits in Hong Kong because of the support of the Hong Kong government, so this face had to be given.

More importantly, the interest rate will definitely be much lower. You should know that one of the main reasons why HSBC agreed to lend the money was the high interest rate.

Robert Barry nodded and said, "Okay, I will discuss it with HSBC and Standard Chartered, there shouldn't be any problem.

However, the boats you purchased with the loan provided by the Hong Kong government will be used to transport water, and the cost will be the same as it is now."

"No problem." Yang Wendong agreed readily.

Getting preferential loans from others definitely comes at a price. Anyway, the short-term purpose of buying a ship yourself is to transport water. Now there is just an additional restriction in the agreement.

As for making real money, once the Dongjiang water is introduced into Hong Kong in 65 years, all these ships will be free, and it will not be too late to operate normally by then.

"Well, OK." Robert Black added: "It would be great if all the wealthy Chinese in Hong Kong were like Mr. Yang and considered people's livelihood.

You don’t know that the demand for water transportation has increased significantly recently, and many fleets have taken the opportunity to raise prices, or say they don’t have ships. I can’t do anything about it. When there is a real shortage, I can only agree to them.”

"This is normal, they are just doing business." Yang Wendong said. It is difficult to comment on this kind of thing, after all, they have no obligation to help.

Especially now many Hong Kong shipowners are still British-owned, and they will not take ordinary Hong Kong people seriously. This is normal. If such problems occur in other countries, Yang Wendong will definitely treat business as business.

As for the few Chinese ship owners in Hong Kong, they may not be able to help even if they want to, because most of them lease their ships out, and they have no autonomy before the lease expires.

"Yes, but I think that at a time like this, we shouldn't just consider business." Bai Liji shook his head.

"Yes, I agree." Yang Wendong added, "Mr. Governor, I will do my best to help the Hong Kong government with the water transportation, but I also have some things on my side that require your help."

"What's the matter?" asked Robert.

"It's like this, I set up a charity foundation." Yang Wendong explained: "The first thing my foundation does is to help the poorest citizens in Hong Kong get basic survival supplies, including basic food and water.

The poorest people in Hong Kong, apart from some refugees, are the squatters in Hong Kong. "

There were also refugees in Hong Kong during this era, but these people were scattered. Not to mention Yang Wendong, even the Hong Kong government couldn't figure out their situation, so it was difficult to help them.

The people living in the squatter huts were actually early refugees, but after living in Hong Kong for many years, they had their own "houses" and settled down there, which was relatively better.

"Mr. Yang's idea is very good." Bai Liji nodded and said, "Then I wonder what I can do?"

Yang Wendong said: “I need a water plant to build pipelines to the vicinity of each squatter hut. It doesn’t need to be in the house, just nearby;
Then my people will maintain order there, distribute water to people nearby, and ensure their basic survival needs.”

Transporting water by truck and selling it is a very stupid method in itself. This method is the most effective in the short term, but it cannot last long because the economic investment is too high and it cannot keep up with the demand.

One is that Hong Kong does not have that many spare trucks, and the other is that the round-trip transportation takes too much time and gasoline, which is much more expensive than the water itself;
The third is that once the water source becomes less, the number of people coming to get water will increase exponentially, and the efficiency of trucking water is just the tip of the iceberg.

The only way is to use pipeline transportation, which is more than a hundred times more efficient than land transportation.

"It will cost a lot of money to build a pipeline," said Mr. Bo Liji, somewhat embarrassed. "Besides, there isn't much water at the water plant."

"Water is not a problem. I will buy water from the mainland. I will buy one of the ships myself, which is enough for use here." Yang Wendong added: "As for the funds, I can provide them, but the technical problems here still need to be solved by the water plant."

A very realistic problem is that any society will have serious problems of uneven distribution.

Even during the drought of 1963, was there really not enough water? Not entirely.

The Hong Kong government spends money to buy water from the mainland. For the purpose of economic return, most of it is given to the prosperous areas of Hong Kong Island or Kowloon. The result is that the rich people in these places pay high prices to buy water for bathing, while people in poor areas have difficulty even drinking water.
The global food problem is actually similar to this.

Now that I'm in charge of transporting water, I naturally have to favor this group. They actually just need water for drinking, cooking, and a little washing. The consumption of dozens of people may not be as much as that of a Hong Kong resident.

Robert White asked, "As for the water, you can decide for yourself, but who owns this pipe?"

"Of course it belongs to me. I can't give my investment away to others for free," Yang Wendong replied. "But the tap water business is operated exclusively by the Hong Kong government. I will not participate. After this matter is over,
If the water company needs it, I can sell it to the water company at a certain price, how about that? "

Berridge smiled and said, "What if they don't need it?"

Yang Wendong smiled and said, "It's unlikely. The hut will also need water in the future. Isn't it just right to do it at the same time?"

In the 60s, industry developed rapidly, and when the economy improved, it was also able to drive the shantytowns. In the future, water will gradually be available in the shantytowns, and many people will even move out.

Bo Liji nodded and said, "Okay, I can agree to this. When the drought is over, I will also ask the water company to take over your old pipes as much as possible."

"Maybe I can donate a section of pipe to the museum, which will be a piece of Hong Kong's historical memory." Yang Wendong suddenly came up with this idea.

It seems not bad. After all, in the previous life, how many young people in Hong Kong knew about the drought in 1963?
During this drought, he has also ordered the Oriental Daily to focus on collecting news and taking photos. In addition to publishing news, these materials can also be kept as historical records for the future.

Bai Liji nodded and said, "This is indeed a very good idea."

Yang Wendong added: "The name of the Governor of Hong Kong will also be recorded in this historical event."

"Haha, thank you Yang Sheng." Bai Liji was naturally very moved.

Drought is a natural disaster and not the responsibility of any official. However, if great achievements are made in the process of fighting against natural disasters, that is also an achievement.

The reason I left my name in the museum before was just because I happened to be in that position;

But if he could leave his name in a drought, that would be a real achievement. When children in the future review the history of Hong Kong in the museum, they will also talk about the drought and his name.

"You're welcome. This is also something the museum should record." Yang Wendong said with a smile.

He and the British Hong Kong were not mortal enemies. Even 20 years later, he still adopted normal negotiation methods with the mainland. Although there were ups and downs in the relationship, most of it was normal.

As a businessman, he naturally needs to handle relationships well.

For a Hong Kong governor, the best way is naturally to win him over with "fame", which is also legal in itself.

Bai Liji said again: "Well, I will hold an internal meeting to discuss it. I will get back to you when there is no problem."

"Okay." Yang Wendong nodded.

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(End of this chapter)