Building a factory takes time. This is not just an assembly plant. Many components are developed by Wujiang Company itself, such as motherboards and keyboards. A few electronic components, including Z80 chips and Sharp LCD screens, must be imported from abroad.
Fortunately, Zhao Ye had already arranged for Wang Anshi to establish a branch in Hong Kong to sell Chinese character cards, which made him quite a bit of money.
Currently, the Chinese character card is selling well and is already a top seller in Hong Kong.
As for sales in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, they are relatively low. After all, the company has not promoted itself there, and relying solely on the brand influence in Hong Kong is not enough to fully open up the markets in those two regions.
The Hong Kong branch already has a considerable amount of Hong Kong dollars in its accounts.
It's much easier to exchange Hong Kong dollars for US dollars in Hong Kong than to exchange RMB for US dollars in mainland China.
Therefore, the Hong Kong branch is now able to independently procure electronic components such as chips and Sharp LCD screens.
However, with the explosive growth of production capacity in mainland China, the Hong Kong branch may not have enough foreign exchange to purchase electronic components.
They could either try to export and earn foreign exchange, or become agents for foreign PC products, such as IBM PCs, and finally negotiate with IBM to settle the payment in US dollars and RMB, which would then be paid to Wujiang Company.
...
...
A week has passed.
In the sweltering summer heat, the construction of the Wujiang factory was in full swing.
Secretary Zhang Fulin, Zhao Ye, and others inspected the construction site while wearing safety helmets.
In order to speed up the construction and shorten the construction period, Zhao Ye mobilized several construction teams.
The factory building won't be very tall; Zhao Ye only plans to build it to a maximum of three or four stories. Low-rise buildings are quick to construct and have low costs.
Moreover, since factory buildings are low-rise, they naturally occupy a large area, so it is reasonable that they need more land.
The land purchased by Wujiang Group is relatively close to the core area of Zhongguancun, and it will definitely be demolished in the future to build high-rise buildings.
That was Zhao Ye's plan: first, build a factory, stay there for seven or eight years, then move the factory to the suburbs, use the original site for commercial building development, and at the same time, build the headquarters technology park belonging to Wujiang Group.
"The construction speed here is so fast!" Secretary Zhang Fulin said with some surprise as he looked at the bustling construction site.
Zhao Ye smiled. "China's speed is not just a name."
"With the land leveling and factory construction completed, it should take about three months!"
"Speed is of the essence. The sooner the factory is built, the sooner our company can start producing typewriters."
Zhao Ye led Secretary Zhang Fulin on a tour of the construction site before returning, reassuring him that Wujiang Group was a company that actually did real work, and that they were not trying to cheat the government out of land at a low price and then hoard it to wait for its value to appreciate, but were genuinely going to build a factory.
Sure enough, Secretary Zhang Fulin was very happy to see that the factory was indeed under construction.
...
At this time, the company's purchasing department was also very busy. Based on the technical requirements for raw material procurement provided by the technicians, the purchasing staff needed to contact suppliers, select from them, and negotiate prices. It was not an easy task at all.
And we will try our best to support domestic companies and achieve localization.
The main advantage of domestic production is that it is of high quality and low price. For Wujiang Group, it can not only reduce production costs, but also save foreign exchange.
In the 1980s, foreign exchange was extremely difficult to obtain. Even if products were exported and foreign exchange was earned, most of it was ultimately taken back by the state. At that time, the country's foreign exchange reserves were very low; for example, in 1980, China's foreign exchange reserves were only $1.2 billion…
...
On the other side of the distant ocean.
IBM senior management meeting.
"Over the past month, IBM PC sales in China have plummeted. Reports indicate that the main reason is the emergence of a cheaper IBM PC compatible brand, Super, which has severely squeezed our market share in China."
In addition, the company that distributes Super products has some influence in China. They have independently developed a product called image-Chinese character card that supports Chinese characters on computers, and it sells very well in China.
Many Chinese users consider purchasing an Imagine-Hanka system when buying a computer. For this reason, the company that developed Imagine-Hanka has been almost invincible in promoting and selling Super PCs.
An assistant began the introduction at the meeting.
IBM executives were slightly surprised.
“Oh, Imagine-Hanka is very important to the Chinese… It seems the company that developed Imagine-Hanka is quite capable. If this company could become our distributor in China, then IBM PC sales should increase significantly. By the way, what's the name of this company?” a senior executive asked casually.
The assistant replied, "It used to be called Imagine Technology Company, but later it was reorganized into a group called Wujiang Group. It still retains the Imagine brand. When making external announcements, it mainly uses Imagine."
"What the heck is 'Boundless'??? Never mind, ignore it. Anyway, whether it's called 'Boundless' or 'Imagine,' contact this company later and inform them to attend our IBM distributor conference on October 10th! If the company offers good terms, we can award them the sole distributorship for IBM PCs in China!!!"
"Okay!" the assistant nodded.
...
Around 9:30 a.m., Zhao Ye was looking at documents in his office.
"Ring ring ring ring!"
The phone rang.
"Hello, who is this?" Zhao Ye picked up the phone and greeted the caller, never expecting that it was IBM calling...
P.S.: This chapter is a bit short, I didn't have time to finish it. It's almost 1600 words, so I'll barely count this as three updates today.
It'll be featured tomorrow, so please support it! If you have any votes, please cast them.
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