Chapter 805: Acquisition Blocked
?Three days later, the number of applicants exceeded ..lā
Immigrants without thresholds are first welcomed by poor people in Africa and the Middle East. Those who have more or less access to the Internet and yearn for a better life in the outside world are particularly enthusiastic when they sign up.
But Jiang Chen obviously failed these people's expectations.
For volunteers from backward regions, Starlink Trade was extremely cautious. Almost no applicants from the African region were selected, and few people from the Middle East were eligible for interviews.
It's not because of racial discrimination, but because of factors such as public security. Living habits, religious customs, and even food culture may bring hidden dangers to the colonization. In order to reduce the risks in this regard, any applicant who takes a negative opinion on secularization will not be eligible for an interview.
After the interview results came out, Liu Qingpeng couldn't even believe that he was selected with only a high school education? !
Happiness came too suddenly, so he excitedly took a few close workers in the factory out for a drink that day, resigned to the person in charge of the factory the next day, and then went to the Xinguo Ambassador with his identity information embassy and got a work visa to Koro Island.
Dragging the suitcase, he got off the plane at the airport on Koro Island, and soon he saw the CMB responsible for picking up the volunteers.
Most of the people on the minibus are people of the yellow race, and there are even his fellow villagers. There were also many people from Europe, the United States, and Russia sitting in the car, but because of the language barrier, he just looked at these foreign devils curiously, and did not communicate with them too much.
The minibus drove on a ferry, and then the ferry drove to Anga Island, and then the minibus took them to the volunteer community next to the training center.
From now on, they will live here and receive 4 hours of on-site training and 4 hours of VR training every day.
After six months, they will be divided into different types of work for specialized training according to their performance in training. One year later, their status will change from temporary workers to full-time workers. Although they are still volunteers, they can already be regarded as quasi-astronauts.
The construction of the space elevator will be carried out simultaneously with the lunar colonization plan. One year later, the Starlink trade will select 200 people from these volunteers, as the first batch of colonists to the moon, and take this shocking first step in interstellar colonization. step!
...
After the space elevator is completed, a large number of astronauts will be needed in the space station.
Construction began on the astronaut training center long before the space elevator program began. On the one hand, it is to provide the staff of the space station to the star ring trade, and on the other hand, it is to provide basic space training for the citizens of the new country, at least to the extent that they can adapt to the zero-gravity environment!
"At present, 30,000 volunteers have arrived in Xinguo for training. Although we have cooperated with Future Travel, the entire aerospace training center is still in a state of loss. According to the estimation of the Ministry of Finance, the deficit of the aerospace training center this month is about 800. between $10,000 and $10 million."
"Are you losing 100 million a year?"
When hearing Xia Shiyu's report, Jiang Chen's expression didn't change much.
The aerospace project is a bottomless pit. He has long been prepared to lose money in the early stage. He has lost more than 100 billion. Does he still care about this mere 100 million?
“The budget for the training center remains unchanged,
But let Wei Yun think of ways to see if this aerospace training center can make more use of tourism. I don’t want to be responsible for my own profits and losses, just don’t lose too much, and I have no other requirements. "
"I will tell him." Xia Shiyu nodded.
"Also, how is the negotiation progress with the Australian SunRice company?" Putting aside the matter of astronaut training, Jiang Chen asked another question he was concerned about, which was the food for the future space elevator space station and the lunar colony base. supply.
"SunRice rejected our proposal to acquire farms in northern Australia, even though we offered an 11% premium. According to the person in charge of negotiating with us at SunRice, this decision was made by the parent company Cargill in the United States."
As we all know, 80% of the global grain market is controlled by the four major companies ABCD. The four companies are American ADM, American Bunge, American Cargill, and French Louis Dreyfus. It can be said that global food prices are basically determined by these four companies.
Interested people can easily find that three of these companies belong to the United States. It can be said that the global grain market is basically under the control of the United States. Although the United States has never announced that the grain market must be settled in U.S. dollars, the rice in the bowls of people around the world has never left the control of the United States.
During the soybean crisis in 2004, Huaguo's crushing enterprises collectively fell, and the Americans gave a painful "trade lesson" to Huaguo people who had just joined the WTO less than three years ago. Until today, more than ten years later, the soybean planting industry in Huaguo has not recovered from the crisis that year.
You know, before 2004, Huaguo was one of the major soybean-producing countries.
It is no longer the barbaric Victorian era. The battlefields between countries have long ceased to rely on real swords and guns. By using the invisible lever of the market, even nuclear weapons can do things that cannot be done.
Whether it is an orbiting space station or a moon base, the only industry that is difficult to be self-sufficient is food production. Even if hydroponic and aeroponic methods are achieved, it is difficult to control their high production costs.
With the space elevator, the cost of transporting food to outer space will be greatly reduced, but it is still difficult to get rid of the control of the four companies ABCD from the source.
At present, Xinguo basically relies on imports of grain from Australia. If Jiang Chen attacks the US dollar, the disgraced United States will undoubtedly beat Xinguo in the grain market.
The new country, which relies entirely on imports for production from grains to dairy products, is defenseless in the food market.
There is only one way to minimize price fluctuations in the international market, and that is to produce by ourselves, changing from an importing country to an exporting country! Even if the rice doesn't grow from the land of Koro Island, it has to grow from overseas farms controlled by Xinguo's domestic enterprises.
Achieving self-sufficiency in food production is crucial to the future development of Xinghuan Trade! So Jiang Chen ordered Xia Shiyu to propose an asset acquisition plan for SunRice, which monopolizes the export of Australian grains, hoping to acquire a 400,000-acre farm in northern Australia from him.
However, it is a pity that Cargill of the United States, which holds SunRice, is not willing to give up the farm in its hands, although the 400,000-mu farm only accounts for a very small part of the arable land held by SunRice.
"What about contacting Cargill in the United States?"
"They don't want to talk about it at all." Xia Shiyu shook her head. "My suggestion is to register a subsidiary in Australia and acquire farms from Australian farmers through the subsidiary... Although the cost and efficiency of doing so are not directly proportional, the difficulty is definitely much less than pulling a tooth from a tiger's mouth."
As one of the granaries in Asia, the Australian agricultural product market is quite mature, and no farmer is willing to sell the farm in his hand. After all, many Australian farmers have made a living on this for generations, and they will not be able to find it if they lose their farm. Do other work.
Unless the future people group offered a high premium, they would not nod at all.
Jiang Chen also encountered difficulties for a while.
Everything in Xinguo is good, but the area is a bit small. When he chose the base, he didn't think so far. He thought that anyway, economic globalization, money can buy everything. However, now that the plate is bigger, he realizes that things are far from as simple as he imagined.
Really troublesome, it would be great if thousands of square kilometers of territorial waters could be replaced with land... Wait!
Thinking of this, Jiang Chen's eyes suddenly lit up.
Wouldn't it be enough to build the farm on the sea? (To be continued.)