Chapter 507 Yangpu Fengbo

With Yang Xing's explanation, Rong Mingyou put down the big stone in his heart, and enjoyed the scenery of the Great Barrier Reef with a great feeling. While admiring the magic of nature, he still couldn't let go of his work. He heard Ye Gelina reporting to Yang Xing. After Xinghua Real Estate repeatedly selected in China during this period, he had selected several places suitable for building a port, so he hurriedly came over to watch. When he saw that Sanduao in his mind ranked first, he couldn't help but feel that the heroes had the same views. His choice was confirmed by experts from Yang Xing and others. It seemed that there was no problem. Sanduao's potential was indeed extraordinary.

But when his eyes were staring at the second-ranked Hainan Yangpu Port, his face twitched. He whispered to Yang Xing: "Brother, this port has good conditions, both the time and place, but it lacks people. Have your subordinates explained to you the annoyance it caused back then? This is a hot potato and it is not easy to deal with."

Hainan’s establishment in 1988 was a great expectation from the central leaders at that time. A province was classified as a special economic zone, which was unprecedented in the reform. Whether it was Shenzhen or Shanghai, it could not be compared with the preferential policies received by Hainan. The chief designer of the reform once mentioned his expectations for Hainan: "If the economy of Hainan Island is developed to the level of Taiwan in 20 years, it would be a great victory."

But the reality is that having a good policy alone does not necessarily guarantee success. Hainan's economic foundation is weak, its population is sparse, and it has been on the domestic border for a long time. In addition to some special agriculture, the province has extremely underdeveloped industries, inconvenient territorial seas on all sides, and is isolated overseas. The South China Sea under its jurisdiction has long-term disputes with surrounding Vietnam, Philippines and other countries. Until now, the central government's requirements have not met.

In addition to its own conditions, Hainan has also taken many detours on the road of reform, with many profound lessons. The major case of reselling cars before Hainan was established, the bursting of the real estate leap in 1992-94 and the subsequent financial crisis, etc., not only left a deep impression on the Chinese people, but also caused a heavy blow to Hainan's economy, which caused a lot of tuition fees. Therefore, Hainan's reform was full of controversy and ups and downs, and the Yangpu Port Style mentioned by Rong Mingyou is very telling.

Yangpu Port is actually a development zone integrating ports and free trade processing zones on a peninsula, Haikou, Hainan Province’s capital, and the development zones are integrated into one. At the beginning of its construction, it was proposed to be built into Hainan’s largest free port. The geographical location of Yangpu Port is between Hainan Haikou Port and Basu Port, facing the vast Indian Ocean. It is known as “deep water, wind shelter, low return silt, long coastline, and natural deep water port”. It is an important seaport for the seaport of the industrial corridor in northwest Hainan and is also a national first-class open port.

As early as 1919, Sun Yat-sen proposed in the "State of Founding of a Country" to build a port in Yangpu, and was tied with Sanduao Port. After the founding of New China, he also planned to develop Yangpu several times, but was delayed due to the barren land of Yangpu and huge development funds. After Hainan was established, he immediately thought of using the opportunity to build Yangpu Port to stimulate the infrastructure construction in the province. However, due to the financial problems that cannot be solved, the then governor suggested to the central government to establish a heavy chemical base in Yangpu and transform the island's agriculture into modern agriculture; to introduce foreign capital to lease land for development, and these suggestions were approved by the central government.

In June 1988, Hainan Provincial Government and Xionggu Group Co., Ltd. reached an agreement to determine that 30 square kilometers of land were allocated to Yangpu as a development zone, with RMB 200 per mu, with a term of 70 years, and leased its land use rights to Xionggu Group. Xionggu Group was responsible for the infrastructure construction and investment development within the area, that is, adopt the "large-scale development and comprehensive compensation" model of land. Yangpu Port, as a free port pilot, became a "special zone in the special zone", in order to make key breakthroughs and achieve the take-off of the province's economy. At this time, only one month after Hainan Provincial Government Fu was listed, which shows the expectations of Hainan Political Officials for this project.

But even such an agreement that seems normal now set off a strong wind. In 1989, domestic political storm broke out suddenly, and the yin clouds that were about to collapse from the foreign Soviet group had already shrouded everyone's hearts. At the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference held in March, some CPPCC members accused the Yangpu development model and the commercial act of Hainan's paid sale of 300,000 square kilometers of land use rights was comparable to the late Qing government's forced cedes Hong Kong under the force of British force, and the big hats such as "inducing wolves into the house" and "new concessions" were all placed on Hainan Province. After media reports, students began to march on the streets and put on the slogan "returning me to Hainan, return me to Yangpu". Public opinion was in an uproar for a while. This was the famous Yangpu Fengbo in Hainan history.

Due to the influence of Yangpu Fengbo and subsequent political debates, the construction of Yangpu Port was forced to be suspended. It was not until the quality of Yangpu Port was set after the reform chief designer's southern tour of 1992, and his innocence was restored. When Yangpu Economic Development Zone was officially closed down in September 1993, it had been delayed by four years since the original plan.

In the past four years, Pudong, which started later than the Hainan Special Zone, has begun to take shape. All the large companies and projects that were originally planning to settle in Yangpu have also been transferred to Pudong. The Yangpu model, which was highly attractive, was widely used by the later development zones such as Pudong, Tianjin, and Suzhou. What was leaking was that Hainan, the country's most special zone, encountered the subsequent real estate bubble bursting and fell into a economic downturn for several years. It was no longer enough to collapse the nest, and Yangpu Port was gradually forgotten.

What's worse is that although the Kumagaya Group, as the largest foreign partner of Yangpu, was once Japan's largest builder, it fell into operational difficulties with the bursting of the Japanese real estate economic bubble, and only after one-third of its global layoffs escaped. However, Kumagaya Group Co., Ltd. was acquired by the domestic Everbright Group in 1997. In this case, Yangpu was in a dilemma of not being able to invest, not having enough local strength, and various construction plans could only lag behind.

Of course, Hainan Provincial Government Fu was not willing to let Yangpu sink into the trap, and tried his best to do so. He then found a national investment and development company that Yang Xing was familiar with to take over the investment. However, the projects of Guotou were spread all over the country, and Yangpu could only barely get some bread crumbs, and the tight funds could not be alleviated. As a result, when Hainan was established, it proposed to build a large seaport with a throughput of over 100 million tons exceeding Taiwan's throughput. However, more than ten years have passed, the two largest ports in the province, Haikou Port and Yangpu Port, have only hovered around one million tons. It is indeed discouraging to think about it.

The reason why Rong Mingyou raised his concerns was not unreasonable. But Yang Xing was not a fool who didn't even know about Yangpu Fengbo, and his subordinates were not mediocre people who looked at the surface. Yang Xing was concerned about this when Rong Mingyou proposed to build a port. After returning, he also dropped his powerful generals and almost sorted out the possible locations of many coastal ports in China. Of course, there is a good reason to place Yangpu Port after Sanduao.

"Old Rong, I know about Yangpu. I chose Yangpu. This is based on the following reasons. First, Yangpu has been constructed since 1991 and the infrastructure is basically complete. As long as we have funds in place, there will be ready-made ports to use. It can not only build a Sanduao training team for us, but also see the results immediately. Second, it is precisely because of Yangpu Fengbo that this debate has basically explained many of the policy risks we encountered, and the matter has basically set the tone. Now, many domestic development zones have actually been tried by Yangpu first. After we take over, others will lack strong policy support if they want to pick bones in the eggs. We can do it with confidence."

"The most important point is that Yangpu Special Zone enjoyed the highest national special zone policy at that time, known as the "special zone among special zones". The entire development zone, including the port, is planned to be close to 100 square kilometers, and enjoy the triple discounts of bonded zones, national economic development zones and special economic zones. On this point, I dare say that we negotiated with Haixi Province to open a port in Sanduao, and it is probably difficult to obtain such policy benefits now. Of course, Sanduao's geographical and hydrological conditions are above Yangpu Port, and the location and transportation advantages are also obvious than those from Yangpu. So I suggest that we fly together. Facing the Pacific and Indian Oceans, we will launch these two port projects at the same time. First, we will experiment with our plan here in Yangpu, and then learn from experience in Sanduao. Moreover, the two port plans can cover and support each other. If we don't put the eggs in the same basket, the risk will be smaller."

After hearing Yang Xing's words, Rong Mingyou couldn't help but sigh that he was indeed old. He thought that in his lifetime he could see the three-du-Ao Port rising from the ground, even if he had a long wish. Unexpectedly, this young man under 30 years old wanted to build a second large port at the same time. Thinking of his big investment in Australia to $5 billion, he had to sigh that the Yangtze River was pushing forward, and that these old guys were about to die on the beach.

In fact, Yang Xing didn't say anything to Rong Mingyou, but he couldn't tell him about his own business secrets. At the beginning, the country chose Yangpu Port to open a port, and another important reason was that Yangpu Port was at the top of my country's imported oil offshore access.

my country has become a net oil importer from 1993. Although its oil production ranks fifth in the world, the rapid growth economy still has a huge demand for oil, which is known as industrial blood. my country's main oil importer is located in the Middle East and East Africa, and basically relies on sea transportation. When the huge fleet of oil transport ships is transported back to China, Yangpu Port is at the forefront of the route that must be returned. Yang Xing considers relying on the regional advantages of Yangpu Port and builds large-scale petrochemical industries such as oil refining and oil storage here, and the prospects will inevitably be bright.
Chapter completed!