Chapter 753 Sheeping the Wool (Third update, please subscribe)
“Participate in the Moscow International Economic Conference?”
Handing Zhu Yihai a cigar, Li Yian said,
“ An invitation letter from the manager of Sunan Trading Company?”
“Yes, Sunan Trading Company”
Zhu Yihai said after taking the cigar.
“It is said to be a private company, but there are no private enterprises in Soviet Russia. It is said to be a private enterprise, but in fact it is an enterprise with an official background.”
“It is not just Official background, and also part of the Soviet intelligence agency."
Li Yian's answer made Zhu Yihai stunned for a moment, and then said.
“Well, that’s understandable. Should I go, or not?”
Zhu Yihai said while smoking a cigar.
"There is no good banquet. The Russians must have some agenda when they invited me there."
"It is nothing more than wanting to break the Western world through private trade. "It's just a blockade."
Li Yian stood up and paced back and forth in the study room with a cigar in hand, thinking as he walked. When he was in college, he had read some Cold War materials about Moscow in 1952. I also have a certain understanding of international economic conferences.
After the United States took the lead in establishing the "Paris Coordination Committee", the Eastern Bloc headed by Soviet Russia was not only subject to a technical blockade but also a trade blockade. In order to break the blockade of the Western world, Soviet Russia used the entire The market of the Eastern world was used as a bargaining chip to invite Western countries such as Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan to Moscow for "private business negotiations" to break through the political constraints of Batumi.
Facts have proved that Steel's decision was correct. No capitalist would ignore such a huge market like the Eastern Bloc headed by Soviet Russia. Even Tangshan achieved a breakthrough in trade with Britain, Japan and other countries at that meeting. Breaking the U.S. embargo. At the Moscow International Economic Conference, trade agreements with a total value of US$224 million were directly signed with 11 countries including the United Kingdom, France, and West Germany. At the same time, a trade agreement with a total value of 60 million pounds was signed with representatives of the Japanese business community.
But this is not the core of this meeting!
"However, the reason why Steel held this meeting is not just to break the blockade. He is Xiang Zhuang dancing with swords!"
Zhu Yihai said curiously,
"Oh? In that case, who is that Pei Gong?"
"Dollars!"
Li Yian said with a slight smile on his face, holding a cigar in his mouth.
“He wants to target the U.S. dollar!”
“What?”
“It is to challenge the U.S. dollar settlement system in post-war international trade, and he wants to use it to build International dollar-free trade bulk trading system ”
Of course, this is just a view from the perspective of future generations, and the original intention of Steel is not to challenge the US dollar. After all, the current US dollar hegemony has not yet been demonstrated. The core reason is... Soviet Russia does not have enough hard currency in its hands - —I don’t have gold or dollars in my hand.
That’s why we want to build a so-called “dollar-free trading system”.
Hearing this, Zhu Yihai, who was holding a cigar, was stunned for a moment, and then said.
"This... is unrealistic! Not using dollars? Using rubles? Who wants rubles except Eastern European countries!"
"No one wants rubles, hard things like gold He doesn’t have much currency himself, so he can only reduce hard currency expenditures through barter trade like Germany did before the war.”
With a faint smile on his face, Li Yi'an didn't even bother to comment on this policy, because Germany had done this before the war. Before the war, Germany tried to use industrial productivity as the basis of the German currency and use direct barter and accounting to conduct import and export trade, thereby reducing hard currency expenditures. At its peak, 83% of Germany's international trade was conducted through barter. But in the end it was still unsustainable.
“Barter trade can be used. But that thing won’t last long. Just like we used to trade with the Northeast, they used soybeans to trade with us, but we can’t exchange soybeans. For American machine tools and European machines, in the end we still cannot do without hard currency.”
Because of his long-term business experience, Zhu Yihai certainly knows the disadvantages of barter trade.
Nodding, Li Yian certainly knows the disadvantages of barter trade. After all, in another world, the Sudong Group has proven this with decades of history, because the barter system cannot maintain trade balance, Later, only the accounting system could be adopted, and currency is just a unit of accounting. Even if it is recorded, it cannot be bought and sold freely. The two parties can only agree on the exchange amount. If the other party does not have the corresponding goods to barter, it can only be recorded. After more and more accounts have been accumulated, in order to settle as soon as possible and avoid losses, we can only accept unnecessary goods or even inferior goods provided by the other party. By that time, everything will be hard to come back. "The difficulty in long-term sustainability and the inability to maintain trade balance is the biggest problem with barter trade and the trade accounting system. However, for us, this is not without benefits."
"Benefits? What benefits?"
Zhu Yihai asked doubtfully.
“Price!”
“What?”
“In order to attract us, they will definitely offer a low price that we cannot refuse. The price is usually higher than international prices. The market price is about 20% lower! ”
"This is impossible!"
Zhu Yihai said directly.
“They sell things at such low prices, don’t they make money?”
“Make money? How much money do they make?”
Took a puff of cigar and blew out the smoke. Finally, Li Yian said.
"When doing business with them, there is no need to consider cost. Before World War II, in the 1930s, Russian wheat was sold all over the world at a price 20% lower than the international market price. Even Tangshan imported it. They bought a lot of cheap Russian wheat. At that time, even American wheat could not be sold.”
At that time, Russia’s exports of low-priced goods were not only wheat. There are also commodities such as lumber. Their low-price dumping even directly silenced businessmen in Suzhou.
Of course there was no word dumping at that time, but businessmen from various European countries even asked the government to provide trade protection. to cope with the impact of low prices for Russian goods.
No matter what happened in the end, until the outbreak of World War II, Russia relied on its low-price advantage to export a large amount of materials and exchanged a large number of industrial machines from European and American countries, thus promoting the development of its own industry.
“This, this is unrealistic!”
Li Yian nodded and said.
“It is unrealistic from the market perspective, but sometimes some things cannot be considered with common sense. In short, if my expectations are correct, this time in order to attract us to sign with them The agreement will have at least 10% to 20% profit margin, so..."
After a pause, Li Yian said.
"Since someone is willing to give up benefits, it would be really a shame if we didn't accept it, don't you think so!"
Shocked, Zhu Yihai said.
"That's right. With such a huge profit margin, if you sign an order of several hundred million dollars, wouldn't it be equivalent to losing hundreds of millions of dollars?"
"Hundreds of millions of dollars... that's just a fortune. Years! If applied to the entire Soviet and Eastern Group, and if it continues, it will last for more than ten years, and the "profit" will increase from hundreds of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars, which is almost as long as we receive hundreds of millions of dollars of Eastern aid every year!" br>
When talking about Eastern aid, Li Yian, who had already walked to the window, couldn't help but be silent for a while. In another world, why did Germany like to import oil from Soviet Russia - at the lowest point, it was even almost one-third cheaper than the international market. , if you don’t pluck such wool, can you treat yourself well?
This is just oil. In fact, during the entire Cold War, in order to break the blockade, capitalists were allowed to actively sell products to them, accept their barter trade methods, and at the same time let European governments You can turn a blind eye or close one eye. The profit margins in Eastern countries are very large. They basically adopt the method of buying at a premium and exporting at a low price. This in and out is almost equivalent to giving away one or two percentage points to others. GDP growth rate.
This kind of business that only made money without losing money was not once or for a year, but continued for decades in the future, almost until Reagan fundamentally blocked the export route to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union Group They have been pursuing a "preferential investment" foreign trade strategy, the purpose of which is to obtain various Western goods and technologies that they lack.
"So, if we go to this meeting, we will basically go there to collect wool?"
Zhu Yihai's words made Li Yian nodded and said.
“Yes, it’s just about gathering wool, and it takes more than one head, and it takes more than one year. Therefore, if you go over this time and be able to participate in it and gather a handful of wool, it will be very beneficial to us...”
(End of this chapter)