Chapter 4 Matsumoto Masamichi's "preferential" conditions

Three days ago, Masayamichi Matsumoto, director of Japan's Nippon Steel Corporation office in China, expressed his willingness to hold talks to the Fang family through officials of the China State Planning Commission.

Although Fang Mingyuan did not include Japanese iron and steel companies in the future equipment procurement from the beginning, he was responsible for the "National Jihua Committee", which was established in 1952 and had long assumed the function of comprehensive economic management of the Chinese government. In the future, these officials who will become the "National Development and Reform Commission", referred to as the National Development and Reform Commission, Fang Mingyuan still has to give some face.

Fang Mingyuan, who has experienced his previous life, certainly knows that the future NDRC will be a "super ministry" with a unique status in Huaxia politics, and it will be the comprehensive coordination department of the State Council. There are nearly 30 departments and bureaus, with thousands of full-time employees, including all areas of the national economy such as industry, energy, and employment, and many ministries and commissions such as the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and the Ministry of Health can find corresponding departments and divisions in the National Development and Reform Commission. In addition, the scope of responsibility of the NDRC also includes national economic planning, industrial and investment policies, institutional reforms, pricing, etc., and participates in the formulation of fiscal and monetary policies. The NDRC, together with the Ministry of Finance and the People's Bank of China, is the same macro-control department, but it is mainly responsible for the comprehensive balance of finance, credit and materials. Its power is so great that people dare not look at it at all. If you offend the officials of the future NDRC, even if the Fang family has the backing of Su Huandong and others, it will be very headache to wear some xiǎo shoes for you in the future, intentionally or unintentionally.

However, Fang Mingyuan was not interested in going there himself, and in his opinion, letting Lin Rong go by himself was already enough to give the Japanese face. Matsumoto Masamichi, although he is the top person in charge of Nippon Steel's personnel in China, he is not the highest-level manager in Nippon Steel. As his assistant, Lin Rong's status in the Fang family industry is only slightly lower than Lin Lian, Aso Xiangyue, and Sun Zhaolun, and in comparison, it is still higher than Matsumoto Masamichi's status in Nippon Steel.

Lin Rong pursed her lips and talked about the negotiation process with Matsumoto Masadchi in the afternoon.

The first meeting between the two sides can basically be said to have taken place in a friendly and warm atmosphere. Matsumoto first talked about the friendly relations between China and Japan, and then congratulated the government on the official approval of the steel plant project soon. Then it was offered to take the initiative and be willing to purchase the equipment for the steel plant project at a preferential price.

Fang Mingyuan frowned slightly, although he had already known from Su Huandong and Mei, Lu, and Chai that the decision of the top management to open the steel industry to private capital had basically settled, and now he was just waiting for a suitable opportunity. The preparatory work for the construction of the Fangjia Iron and Steel Plant project has basically begun to be put into operation. But hearing a Japanese congratulate him in advance made him feel a little uncomfortable. Fang Mingyuan will never forget that the Japanese spy report was quite famous in World War II!

"Mingyuan, Mr. Matsumoto Masamichi also mentioned that if the Fang family is willing, Nippon Steel Corporation can do its best to include this project in Japan's economic aid project to China, and can help the Fang family apply for a large low-interest long-term loan in the yen." Lin Rong continued, "The loan interest rate can not be higher than three percent. ”

Fang Mingyuan's eyebrows were immediately picked, Matsumoto Masado really made a lot of efforts to win his own business. However, it can also be seen from this that Nippon Steel has a huge influence in Japan, and its head in China dares to say such things.

Of course, Fang Mingyuan is no stranger to Japan's economic assistance to Huaxia, you must know that in his previous life, for this, Huaxia and Japan really fought several verbal battles. Therefore, all the Chinese people in China who were more concerned about the relations between Japan and China at that time knew about this.

Japan's economic assistance to China began in 1979 when then Japanese Prime Minister Masahiro Ohira announced during his visit to China that the official statement was that Japan would provide Japan with yen loans and jishu cooperation to China in order to support China's reform, opening up, and modernization. Japan's economic aid to China is divided into three parts: loans, free capital cooperation, and jishu cooperation. Fang Mingyuan remembers very well that before his death in his previous life, according to the website of the Japanese government, Japan's yen loans to Huaxia were about 3 trillion yen, and the free capital cooperation was about 150 billion yen, and the Jishu cooperation was almost close to 150 billion yen. At that time, Japan was the country that provided the most aid to China, accounting for more than 60 percent of the total aid received by China, and China was also the largest recipient of Japan's aid.

The scope of Japan's assistance to China includes infrastructure construction in China's economic fields such as railways, highways, ports and airports, as well as a wide range of fields such as rural development, environmental protection, and improvement of medical care standards. For example, the first subway line in Beijing, the capital airport, as well as the electrified railway renovation in China, the construction of large ports, and the construction of bridges, all have loans from Japan.

Fang Mingyuan admitted that at that time, Huaxia had just opened the country, and due to the limited foreign exchange reserves, but it was in urgent need of foreign exchange funds to support the introduction of jishu and large-scale equipment procurement, the yen loan with low interest and long cycle just solved the urgent need. Therefore, whether it is the goodwill of the Japanese for giving up the war reparations to China or the objective demand for Sino-Japanese trade, as a symbol of the improvement of Sino-Japanese economic relations, the yen loan has become a symbol of the improvement of Sino-Japanese relations, and has made a significant contribution to China's early economic take-off.

However, if Fang Mingyuan is grateful to the Japanese for this, it is delusional!

Not to mention the fact that Huaxia Zhengfu gave up to recovering up to 150 billion US dollars in war reparations from the Japanese government, which is more than five times the total amount of Japan's aid to Huaxia for several decades, and this is still under the condition that no interest is calculated.

Japan's assistance to China is also of great benefit to Japan itself.

For example, when Huaxia Zheng Fǔ uses yen loans in the construction of infrastructure projects, such as the construction of an airport, it must first be declared to the relevant Japanese ministry, and if the Japanese side agrees, the yen loan used will not be remitted to Huaxia Zheng's account, but will be directly remitted to the project contractor by the bank designated by the Japanese government at the time of payment, and Huaxia Zheng will not see a penny in cash. Therefore, the vast majority of projects that use yen loans are undertaken or participated in by Japanese-related companies. There is no doubt that Japanese companies will make a corresponding profit from this. And also take this opportunity to enter the Chinese market with the products of these enterprises.

In addition, interest is also charged on these yen loans. In the beginning, the Japanese government set the conditions for yen loans quite generously, such as the interest rate set at about 1 percent, and only the interest was repaid in the first 10 years, but not the principal, etc., which was undoubtedly a great help to China, which had just begun reform and opening up and lacked foreign exchange in its hands. At that time, the Huaxia people used these loans to build Baogang Iron and Steel, thereby reducing some high-grade steel imports, and at the same time built several railways to continuously transport high-quality coal and coke from China to Japan, in exchange for rare foreign exchange for China at that time. And Japan has also benefited handsomely. It can be said that it is the result of mutual benefit for both parties.

"Humph! Three percent interest rate, is it low? Fang Mingyuan sneered.

"Is it high?" Lin Rong blinked and said incomprehensibly. As far as she knows, this interest rate is much lower than the domestic and U.S. lending rates. Especially in China, if private enterprises want to obtain large loans, it is simply difficult to reach the sky if there is no strong officialdom backstage. If the Fang family hadn't been on good terms with Gu Yucheng back then, and had made suggestions for the development of Jiāo Tong Bank, it would not have been so easy to get a large loan later, even if it was mortgaged. In many cases, these private enterprises in China have to borrow usury.

"Rong Rong, the level of loan interest rates can not only look at the situation in our country, but also look at the situation in Japan." Fang Mingyuan remembered that in the previous life, due to the economic recession in Japan, the central bank's interest rate was low for many years, and then it fell to less than one percent, and even one in a thousand and zero interest rates! Therefore, although the interest rate of 3 percent is low, compared to Japan, such an interest rate is already so generous that the Bank of Japan will cry.

Moreover, at that time, the developed countries of the West, out of the overall consideration of stabilizing the Shijie economy, agreed to formulate assistance to developing countries. As the only developed country in Asia, Japan's division of labor focuses on assisting developing countries in Asia, which naturally includes China, and it is reasonable that China, as the largest and most populous country in Asia, has become Japan's most important recipient of aid.

Moreover, Japan uses loans in foreign aid and rarely uses gratuitous aid, which has also been strongly criticized by Western countries, and even a joint resolution of Western countries has been requested by the Japanese government to make corrections. For this reason, Japan has repeatedly reduced or reduced the yen loans of the recipient countries by a large margin, but according to the people concerned, it has never reduced or reduced a penny of its money only to China.

Fang Mingyuan didn't know whether the Japanese government had reduced Huaxia's yen loans, because in his previous life, until his death, Huaxia officials had never had an authoritative statement, of course, even if there were, the Chinese people at that time would be used to putting a big question mark on it.

But for the Japanese, Fang Mingyuan would rather believe in it than believe in it!

Lin Rong nodded thoughtfully, she decided that after she went back, she must call Aso Kazuki to find out about the bank loan interest rate in Japan!