Yang Yihe's dissatisfaction with the Nord Stream Iron and Steel Plant has been a long time, but it is only in the last year or so that he really has the idea of rectifying the Nord Stream Iron and Steel Plant.

Last year, the plenary session of the CPC Central Committee adopted a decision on the reform of the economic system, the core of which can be summed up in four words, that is, "streamlining administration and delegating power."

In China, the division of responsibilities between the central and local governments has gone through several back-and-forths, sometimes with the central government controlling the power and sometimes delegating power to the local government. Since the beginning of reform and opening up, the central government's policies have generally been developing in the direction of decentralization, and last year's decision on the reform of the economic structure clearly put forward the principle of expanding local autonomy.

Taking advantage of this spring breeze, a vigorous construction upsurge has been set off across the country, and local governments have tried every means to raise funds to start construction of various projects. In addition, the sudden rise of township and town enterprises has led to the continuous expansion of the scale of capital construction throughout the country, and an extremely prosperous situation has emerged.

Behind this prosperity, local leaders at the level of Yang Yihe can clearly see that the foundation of prosperity is very weak. To engage in infrastructure, in addition to capital, we also need the support of raw materials, especially steel. In the past year, the national output of finished steel was only 36 million tons, deducting the part needed to ensure the national key construction projects, and finally falling into the hands of local governments for infrastructure construction is a drop in the bucket.

In the case of insufficient steel in the national plan, local governments want to obtain steel in two ways, one is to import from abroad, and the other is to mobilize local steel mills to expand the scale of production, and provide more steel products outside the plan to meet local needs. Anhe Province does not have more export foreign exchange retention like those coastal provinces, so the road of importing steel is not going through, and the remaining way is to let the steel mills in the province tap the potential for innovation. Increase production.

With such an idea, Yang Yihe, who was in charge of industry in the province, went to various iron and steel plants in the province, pulled down the face of the vice governor, and spoke kindly to those factory directors and asked them to expand production. The directors of various steel mills slapped their chests loudly in front of him, and they only had to bite their middle fingers to write a bloody letter to ensure it. But after all these rhetoric. Immediately followed by a lot of difficulties, what is the lack of funds, backward equipment, and shortage of raw materials...... It boils down to one sentence: no play!

If it was just a steel factory complaining to Yang Yihe like this, he could ignore it, and even ruthlessly remove the factory director from his position and hire another virtuous person to take the role. But all the steel plants in the province seem to have made an appointment, and even the reasons for saying it are the same, and Yang Yihe can't deal with it. He even had some doubts that the steel problem was indeed an unsolvable problem, and that An Ha Province could not solve such a difficulty.

This time, he came to Nord Stream with Yue Guoyang to deal with the problem of slag. Yang Yihe had an unexpected gain, that is, he heard from Yue Guoyang's mouth about a Qin Hai who could create magic. According to Yue Guoyang, Qin Hai started from scratch and revitalized the long-closed Pingyuan Iron and Steel Plant without asking for a penny of state support.

Yang Yihe didn't know how Qin Hai did it, but he was in a hurry to go to the doctor. He still plans to chat with Qin Hai to see if this young man has a way to solve the steel shortage in An Ho Province. Yang Yihe has always believed that there is a creature like a genius in this world. So he didn't think Qin Hai's age was a hard injury.

Hearing Yang Yihe's request, Qin Hai pondered for a moment and said, "The problem of the Nord Stream Iron and Steel Plant is not fundamentally a technical problem, but a ...... Institutional issues. ”

When it came to institutional issues, Qin Hai was a little hesitant. I don't know if saying this kind of thing will make Yang Yihe feel unhappy. Officials at that time were very interested in talking about structural reform, but they were very shy about the shortcomings of the system. This may sound contradictory, but it is widespread. For example, everyone knows that the planning system was an important reason for restricting productivity at that time, but when it comes to reform ideas. However, no one dared to directly deny the planning system, so they could only cover their ears and say that they wanted to engage in a "planned commodity economy."

As a traverser, Qin Hai knew very well what the root cause of the nationwide shortage of raw materials was, but the idea of solving the problem was ahead of the times, and he didn't know if Lu Dao's idea could be accepted by an old cadre like Yang Yihe.

"What do you say about the system?" Yang Yihe said that he was not surprised by Qin Hai's words, because some questions were also something he had thought about.

Since he had started, Qin Hai was not polite, he said: "First of all, the unreasonable price system is the main reason for the lack of production enthusiasm and the difficulty in equipment transformation of steel mills, which Governor Yang should have heard, right?" ”

"I've heard of it, but ...... I am afraid that this problem cannot be solved by the province. Yang Yihe smiled bitterly.

In the era of planning economy, the prices of all commodities in the market were set by the state, and enterprises had no pricing power. Since the beginning of the reform, the state has successively liberalized the prices of agricultural products and light industrial products, but it has never dared to liberalize the prices of heavy industrial products. Because the latter is in the upstream of the industrial chain, once liberalized, it will lead to chain price increases of downstream products, resulting in unpredictable social risks.

However, in this way, there is a disharmony in the prices of light and heavy industrial products. The continuous rise in the prices of light industrial products has caused the living costs of the whole society to continue to rise. The price of heavy industry products remains unchanged, so that the income of heavy industry enterprises cannot rise. Under such circumstances, the more heavy industry enterprises produce, the more they lose money, and some of the limited profits used to pay the wages of workers and workers seem to be stretched, and where is there spare money to update equipment and improve technology.

The only way to solve this problem is to relax the price control on heavy industry in a timely manner and let the prices of heavy industry products gradually increase, so that heavy industry enterprises can obtain the funds needed to expand reproduction, thus forming a virtuous circle. And to do this, it is indeed not possible for a province to do it. In order for iron and steel plants to carry out production, it is also necessary for the state to allocate ore, coal and other raw materials through directive planning, so it is unrealistic to jump out of the management of planning.

"The second aspect is the internal mechanism of state-owned enterprises, in order to improve the enthusiasm of workers and urge them to improve their technical level, there must be a more flexible mechanism. In this regard, I carried out a pilot project at Pingyuan Iron and Steel Plant, and it has achieved results. However, I can guarantee that it is impossible for Nord Stream steel plants to adopt such a mechanism. Qin Hai continued.

In essence, Pingyuan Iron and Steel Plant is no longer the original state-owned enterprise, but a private enterprise under Qin Hai's name. In the Pingyuan Iron and Steel Plant, Qin Hai implemented a full set of market-oriented salary and personnel systems, and workers with good skills were able to get more money, and workers who worked more could also get more money. Under such a mechanism, the production efficiency of the Pingyuan Iron and Steel Plant is several times higher than in the past, and the workers work happily and count the money happily, and there is no such phenomenon as the old state-owned enterprises that are superficial.

Although Qin Hai has not had in-depth contact with the Nord Stream Iron and Steel Plant, with his own imagination, he can also know what the current situation in the Ludao plant is. He said that it is impossible for Nord Stream steel plants to adopt such a mechanism, which is completely in line with the actual situation.

"So there is no hope for the Nord Stream steel plant?" Yang Yihe asked.

Qin Hai shook his head: "At least I can't see where the hope is." There are so many problems at the Nord Stream steel plant that they can't be solved with one or two ideas. ”

Yang Yihe thought for a while, and suddenly said: "If I hand over the Nord Stream Iron and Steel Plant to you, can you solve the problem?" ”

Qin Hai was taken aback: "Governor Yang, although I am young, my heart is not very strong, don't scare me like this." ”

Yang Yihe smiled: "I didn't scare you, I'm serious." I just thought, you can revitalize the Pingyuan Iron and Steel Plant, why don't you hand over the Nord Stream Iron and Steel Plant to you to revitalize? The central government is now advocating joint ventures between various economic forms, and since the Nord Stream steel plant is hopeless, why not take it out as a pilot for joint ventures in the province? ”

Qin Hai stared at Yang Yihe's eyes, trying to find some banter in them, but what he saw was calm. He hesitated for a moment and asked, "Governor Yang, aren't you really joking?" ”

"You don't joke, I'm a vice governor anyway, can I make such a joke with you little young worker?" Yang Yihe said.

Qin Hai shook his head and said, "This matter is difficult. Pingyuan Iron and Steel Plant is a factory that has closed down, and I just borrowed its shell, without any fetters. The Nord Stream Iron and Steel Plant is completely different, it is still a normal operating enterprise, although the benefits are not very good, but the wages and benefits can be sent out, except for you Governor Yang, everyone thinks it is not bad. Under these circumstances, it would be difficult to reform it. What's more, I just offended Wang Yiqiao, does Governor Yang think he can cooperate with me in a happy mood? ”

Yang Yihe said: "The matter of Wang Yiqiao is not something you need to consider. I said that handing over the Nord Stream steel plant to you is not something that can be done immediately. Well, from now on, think about it. After the year, when the province has solved the relevant problems, we will discuss what kind of method to use to revitalize the Nord Stream Iron and Steel Plant, so that it can truly play the role of a basic industry. ”

"Well, I'll use that time to think about it too. However, I hope that Governor Yang will change his original intention and not put my young man on the fire. Qin Hai said half-jokingly.

Yang Yihe shook his head and sighed: "Young people, how can you grow up without experiencing a little wind and rain?" Others can't find such a chance to be roasted on the fire, and you still push three or four, it's really mud that can't support the wall. (To be continued......)