On December 18, 1978, a piece of news that shocked the world came from the north, and the mainland officially announced that the whole country was about to carry out the policy of "reform and opening up".

That is, internal reform, raising the people's economic level, external reform, increasing foreign cooperation, attracting foreign investment, and so on.

"It's incredible that such a big news was suddenly released in China." In the Chen family's Repulse Bay villa, Chen Tianfu couldn't believe it after getting the news.

"Normal, in fact, in recent years, China has begun to expand foreign cooperation." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said: "In the first half of this year, the mainland government sent four delegations to the United States, Japan, and Europe to visit local large industrial companies, just to communicate in advance, and after the policy is clear, you can directly talk about cooperation. ”

"Why?" Chen Tianfu asked, he hadn't heard of it.

"The chairman of GM is a smart man, and he can see that the domestic market is very large, so he proposed a joint venture to produce cars in China, but the board of directors in the United States does not dare to take risks, nor is it willing to make a large investment in the country, their idea is to build cars directly in the United States, and then if the mainland wants, they can export them from the United States." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said.

"What I think is really beautiful, but if you really want to consume more foreign exchange in the mainland?" Chen Tianfu shook his head and said that although he did not understand the automobile industry, he still knew the domestic foreign exchange situation.

"In fact, it is normal, and if it is not clear, who would dare to make a big determination to invest hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars?" Chen Zhiwen said calmly.

The investment in the automobile industry, just an automobile factory is huge, hundreds of millions of dollars are not necessarily enough, but this is not the most important, the most important thing is the lack of domestic automobile industry chain, no industrial chain, just one automobile factory is useless, and if you want to bring the industrial chain into the mainland, not to mention all, it is half, that is also a huge amount of investment, many or other people's companies, involving too many things.

Even the Volkswagen of later generations also spent a lot of money to realize the local industrialization of some parts.

"Then you are going to invest in China, and now the domestic policy is openly welcoming foreign companies to invest?" Chen Tianfu asked.

"Of course, but now that the policy has not been implemented, there must be a guide on where to invest, right? Otherwise, the mainland is so big, who should I look for? Chen Zhiwen shrugged and said.

In fact, there is no hurry, anyway, Shekou Industrial Zone will be established next month, and it will only take a month's work, so he still has to wait for this time.

"That's just as well." Chen Tianfu nodded and said.

"Things in the mainland also have a lot to do with the Hong Kong real estate market, which is a positive impact after all, Hengyi here, or can take the land, it is estimated that in the next few years, housing prices will still rise sharply." Chen Zhiwen said again.

"Will the mainland's reform and opening up affect Hong Kong's real estate market?" Chen Tianfu asked.

"Of course, the current high-level people in the mainland, or those who do foreign trade and have contact with the outside world, may understand the Western economy, and conversely, there are a small number of people in the West who understand the domestic situation, which was enough in the past, but now it is different, the whole country is fully reformed, and the requirements for foreign contacts will be greatly increased, which must find a suitable intermediary, you say, now in addition to Hong Kong, what else meets this requirement?" Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"This makes a lot of sense, that is, a lot of capital and business will be turned over through Hong Kong?" Chen Tianfu nodded and said.

"Yes, in the future, there will definitely be a large number of overseas companies coming to Hong Kong to buy real estate, they may not necessarily buy houses, but they will definitely rent houses, especially office buildings, the number of them will definitely affect the price of housing." Chen Zhiwen analyzed.

In fact, in 1979, Hong Kong's housing prices have caught up with the peak of 1973, theoretically it has almost reached the limit, but it is precisely because of the reopening of the mainland that Hong Kong has become the preferred choice of a large number of overseas tourists and overseas business, a large amount of capital into Hong Kong, plus the trade volume of the port has also increased sharply, which has made Hong Kong's real estate market continue for more than two years.

"Then I have to set up some office buildings, son, what do you think?" Chen Tianfu asked with a smile.

"No, the current housing prices are already very high, wait for you to re-tun, the cost performance of investment is too low, it is better to make money first, Hong Kong's property market has a cycle for several years, and now it is half of the bull market, you can go in to make money, but there is no need to hoard, and then talk about it in the bear market." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said. Selling property in the bull market, recovering land in the bear market, is the most basic principle of Hong Kong's real estate industry, everyone knows, even those who can't afford to buy a house know, the problem is to see when is the trough and when is the peak, and how much confidence in their own judgment, as long as the guess is accurate, plus dare to gamble, that is absolute profiteering.

"Okay, I'll listen to you." Chen Tianfu nodded, listening to his son's words over the years, he has made hundreds of millions of dollars, and Hengyi has developed more than 20 projects at the same time, and has gradually become a real estate company second only to the five tigers of real estate.

The reform and opening up of the mainland is like a meteorite falling into the ocean, setting off a monstrous tsunami, and the whole of Hong Kong is discussing this matter, and most people, even some Chinese businessmen and government officials, do not know the impact of this incident on themselves.

Although Chen Zhiwen attaches great importance to this matter, at present, the mainland has only issued a notice, and the specific policy needs to wait a little longer to know, and another thing, which makes Chen Zhiwen a little happy.

After four years of research and development, Midea Group's first inverter air conditioner was successful.

After getting the exact news, Chen Zhiwen hurriedly rushed to the test center base of the Midea Industrial Park.

In order to ensure quality, Midea Group has specially set aside an 11-storey industrial office building in the Midea Industrial Park, set up a large laboratory, and imported all kinds of precision instruments and test equipment from overseas to facilitate the testing of the group's products.

Coming to a special testing room, this is a soundproof room, the outside sound is almost inaudible, and the temperature is almost isolated.

Winter in Hong Kong is not very cold, but it is much colder here, and the main reason is that there is a vertical air conditioner in the room, blowing the air in a low voice.

"Chen Sheng, the temperature here is relatively low, let's open the door, right?" An assistant next to him said.

"No, you don't." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said, and at the same time walked to the side of the air conditioner, feeling that this sound was indeed much quieter than the ordinary air conditioner.

"Chen Sheng, according to your set requirements, our air conditioner through the monitoring of the room temperature, and then through the chip to control the speed of the compressor, once the temperature is reduced, the cooling capacity will be increased, vice versa, finally, when the room temperature reaches the set value or so, it will output the cold air at a very slow speed to ensure that the temperature of the room changes within 1 °C, so that the temperature difference does not change much in the environment, the human body feels the most comfortable, and the air conditioning noise is very small, there is no sound of frequent start." He Guoyuan, head of the household appliances department of Midea Group, explained.

"Has it been tested in every way? Can the control system work continuously? Chen Zhiwen asked.

In the history of Hong Kong, there has also been the most elite figure in the electronics industry, that is, He Guoyuan, in the original history, He Guoyuan in Hong Kong for ten years, from a just graduate, became the general manager of Hong Kong's largest electronics factory, and this company is still growing in his hands, from dozens to thousands of people, he himself also received a salary of 500,000 US dollars a year, no less than the large class of Hong Kong Ocean Bank.

In 1983, he immigrated to Canada and founded ATI in Canada, which eventually became the world's largest graphics card company worth billions of dollars more than 20 years later, until he retired and sold his company because he had no heirs.

Last year, He Guoyuan became the director of the Hong Kong branch of Philips, which is the youngest and shortest person in the history of Philips to become a regional director, less than two years.

Subsequently, Chen Zhiwen directly spent a lot of money to dig him up, and then put him in charge of Midea's household appliances business.

"In addition to the accuracy test in the laboratory in Hong Kong, we also sent 500 sets of samples to the Middle East, where the life test was carried out in a high-heat environment for about half a year, and almost 17 of them had problems, but we found the reason, and then updated the product according to the problem." He Guoyuan replied: "In addition, all our staff dormitories are now equipped with our air conditioners, plus some employees' homes are also installed by us for free, which is considered a company welfare, there are almost 4,000 air conditioners, and at the ambient temperature in Hong Kong, there have been problems with 2 units, and they have been easily solved." ”

"One in two thousand? This probability is not very high, but it is not low, or we have to find a way to reduce the failure rate, otherwise, the after-sales cost in the United States is too high, and we can only rely on Costco this market. Chen Zhiwen thought for a while and said.

Midea electric fan, in Chen Zhiwen a large number of terminal resources investment, has basically gotten rid of the demand for Costco or Wal-Mart, in the past two years, fan sales have risen rapidly, because of the cheap price, large air volume and low noise, in the whole Europe and the United States can be said to be more popular, the rest of the time, only need to rely on Hong Kong side almost the whole industry chain holding, you can beat other opponents.

After the change, the fan production will be moved to the mainland, and then the group extinguishment mode can definitely be started.

But air conditioning is different, the technical content of air conditioning is very high, household appliances are second only to color TVs, ordinary normal people, buy this kind of large items, as long as they are not particularly short of money, then they will definitely choose famous brands.

Fortunately, in the American market, it is more expensive than buying air conditioners to install air conditioners, and Costco is not the same as general supermarkets, it covers a larger area, plus Hong Kong sent Chinese to install air conditioners, enough Chinese employees can greatly reduce the cost of installing air conditioners for American customers, but what is more funny is that the wages of Chinese employees sent are far more than Hong Kong, but the workload is not as good as in Hong Kong, and the efficiency of air conditioning installation workers in the United States is too low.

Therefore, in Costco, the sales of Midea air conditioners are not bad, enough to feed the factories in Hong Kong, but if you want to be bigger, go to other supermarkets, there is no advantage, even if it is Wal-Mart, which has a good relationship, because there is no way to reduce after-sales costs, sales are also very low.

Therefore, wanting to get rid of Costco's absolute dependence is the most urgent need of Midea's air conditioning department, after all, it is the refrigerator business, which is also doing well in Walmart and several other supermarkets.

The more technical things are, the more difficult it is to occupy the market, and the same is true for color TVs in the future.

"So I plan to sell a large number of inverter air conditioners to the Middle East while there is still half a year to enter the summer in the United States, where we have sales channels, the local people have money, and the environment is hot enough, so it will be used as a small batch test." He Guoyuan said.

"Okay, just sell it at the cost price, as long as the quality is not a problem, the United States is the big market." Chen Zhiwen nodded in agreement.

At present, the single largest market in the world is the United States, and even Europe combined cannot be compared.

"In terms of patents, they have all been registered, right? Worldwide? Chen Zhiwen asked again.

"It's all done, Hong Kong has joined the World Intellectual Property Organization, and registering a patent in Hong Kong is basically equivalent to registering in the global Western market, and I have also sent people to register in some other Asian countries and South American countries." He Guoyuan said.

"Okay, the patent piece, we used to be stuck in the neck, and now we have to get stuck in someone else's neck, even if they can get around, it will take a little more time." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said.

In the process of developing inverter air conditioners, it involves a lot of temperature control technology, which has long been registered by some old companies, in order to obtain patents, you can only buy, and the core compressor, although the acquisition of the German BITZER, but there are many technologies have to be purchased from companies such as Siemens and Bosch in Germany.

Fortunately, it is not a very core patent of others, and you can buy it as long as you pay for it, otherwise, it will be troublesome.

Midea is the first company to develop inverter air conditioning, in recent years, Hong Kong and the United States a total of tens of millions of R & D expenses, naturally there are a lot of patents, other companies even if bypass, but also have to spend a little effort, as long as you can delay others for a year or two, for the terminal market, is also a very big advantage, the first mover effect in the traditional industry, although far inferior to the Internet industry, but there is always there.

Of course, it is impossible to get stuck with others, in fact, Chen Zhiwen only proposed this idea first, and at the technical level, he was able to do it a long time ago, but no one proposed it.

If Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, at the hardware level, such a mobile phone could have been made as early as 5 years ago, but no one had this idea, Jobs was the first to realize it, similar to electric cars, the 18650 battery for notebooks was born as early as the 90s, but Tesla founder Martin Eberhard was the first to think of tying thousands of batteries to the chassis of the car.

Midea's current inverter air conditioner is actually the same example, Midea grabbed a head start, and other players will enter the market in the future, just like other mobile phones and trams in later generations, in the original history, in 1980, Toshiba of Japan was about to invent its inverter air conditioner.

"Another thing, this set of technology can also be used in the refrigerator, which can reduce the power consumption of the refrigerator, but the cost will increase a lot." He Guoyuan said.

"No, there is no shortage of electricity in the United States, and we don't need to increase costs for users who don't care about electricity bills." Chen Zhiwen shook his head and said.

The consumption of energy in the United States is simply incredible, no one in the family does not turn off the air conditioning in the summer, and the heating is not turned off in the winter, and after the oil crisis, it is a little cautious in the use of car oil, and the refrigerator is energy-saving, and it is estimated that it will be more important in developing countries where electricity is more expensive, and it will naturally improve in the future, but now it is specifically for the American market, it is not necessary, and it is better to ensure that the initial price is cheaper.

"Is there a problem with the size of the factory and the need for personnel?" Chen Zhiwen asked again.

"The plant area is no problem for the time being, but in terms of personnel, now the labor cost in Hong Kong is getting higher and higher, and most of our business can afford it, but the fan business is not very good, the cost of labor is getting higher and higher, and the cost performance is not as good as some companies in Wanwan, at present, our advantage is that we rely on Galaxy Trade to have a better relationship with most of the retail supermarkets, plus our fans are more high-quality in terms of quiet." He Guoyuan said.

"Okay, I know, I'll find a way to solve this matter." Chen Zhiwen nodded and said that Midea's fans have always taken the route of selling more glass, that is, to maintain a very low profit margin, and then compete for the market, similar to the strategy with Coca-Cola.

It's just that this industry is the lowest grade in household appliances, and it is also labor-intensive, and labor costs account for a large proportion.

But it doesn't matter, the reopening and start, by January next year, Shekou Industrial Zone will be established.

(End of chapter)