Chapter 289 The Formation of a New System
March 17, 2028.
The magic city with sunny winds.
Omar and his group, as well as representatives of several other grain trading companies in West Asia and North Africa who manage and purchase grain, were jointly invited by COFCO Group and other companies to come to a business building.
As soon as he came in, Omar saw an old acquaintance.
"Habby, are you here too?"
A middle-aged white man with a beard turned his face and smiled suddenly: "Omar, are you here to participate in this purchase of food?"
"Of course, international food prices are too high now, and Lucia and Kiev Ross probably don't have much food to sell to us." Omar explained with a wry smile.
Habi nodded slightly: "Indeed, our company represented the Emirates of Saudi Arabia a few days ago and went to Lucia for negotiations. As a result, the price they gave was very high and the quantity was very small."
"You've gone? How much is Lucia willing to give?"
Habi didn't have the idea of keeping it secret, after all, you can tell by looking at this issue: "This year, only 10 million tons of wheat export quota will be given."
"10 million tons?" Omar's voice suddenly became a little sharper: "It has dropped so much? They are so severely affected by the weather this year?"
"Well, according to the feedback from our company's negotiation team, Lucia's Eastern European Plain and the southern part of the Novosibirsk Plain are still in a state of freezing. In previous years, the southern plains of these areas have been thawed one after another, and the planting time this year may be delayed by about a month than in previous years."
Omar frowned: "No wonder Lucia dared not increase the quota. Are they worried that the harvest this year will not be good and affect the food reserves?"
Hubi also thought so: "This is probably the case. After all, the weather has been too abnormal in recent years, and they dare not sell their reserves casually. Especially when there are serious problems with grain production in North America and Western Europe, they dare not reduce their food reserves."
Thinking of this business negotiation, Omar quickly asked, "By the way, COFCO Group said they wanted to introduce us to new products. Do you know what the situation is?"
"I know, I'll take you there, and you'll know what new product it is."
"Then let's go!" Omar couldn't wait to pull Habi.
The group came to a showroom.
Several chefs are cooking some common dishes in West Asia and North Africa, such as baked naan, scones, flatbread, pilaf, Ottoman barbecue, etc.
Hubby picked up a freshly baked pancake, put the prepared roasted lamb, shredded cucumber, sliced tomatoes, and shredded onion on the pancake, and squeezed some special sauce.
Omar, who was unknown, also made a cake: "What's the situation? Where is the new product?"
"Eat and have a look."
"Eat..." Looking at the burrito in his hand, Omar still took a bite. After putting it in, he didn't feel any problem. However, after chewing it for a few times, he found something different: "This taste? Why is it a bit like chickpeas?"
Holding the burrito in his hand, Hubby smiled and said, "This is their new product."
"Is this kind of cake made of beans?" Omar then reacted: "Made of fairy beans and soybeans?"
"That's right. I heard it is a new variety, a variety that is more suitable as a staple food. These big cakes are made of flour grinding from fairy beans and soybeans."
Omar and several others also tasted it carefully.
After a while, after eating the big cake in his hand, Omar expressed his opinion: "The taste is similar to chickpeas. If you like to eat chickpeas, you should be able to accept this flour. However, since they specifically recommend it to us, there must be something special, right?"
"They call this bean flour a full nutrition bean flour, which can meet daily needs carbohydrates, oils, proteins and some vitamins."
"Oh?" Ali was a little surprised: "This bean flour is so good?"
"Well, this flour can solve the problems of hunger and malnutrition, and is especially suitable for you in Egypt," Habi reminded.
As for why it is suitable for Egypt, it is not that Egypt is too poor and has a large population. Many people can only rely on big cake subsidies to barely guarantee not to starve to death.
Faced with this situation, there must be many undernourished people in the lower class of Egypt.
"Where is the price?"
"CFC Group's quotation is 3,100 Chinese Yuan per ton."
"Export price?"
"Of course, otherwise do you think it's a land price?"
Omar is in the middle of thinking. The value of the Chinese dollar has soared recently. At the end of last year, the Chinese dollar has been 7.04:1 in US dollars, and this month it has soared to the exchange rate of 6.81:1.
"Are you worried about the exchange rate?"
"Yes!" Omar did not hide anything. Egypt's foreign exchange reserves were very nervous and he was very worried about the future situation.
Habi reminded: "You should try to convince those people in your country! Increase Huayuan reserves as soon as possible, otherwise you will definitely lose more and more."
Habi did not deceive Omar. Their Saudi emirates increased their holdings of a large amount of Huayuan last year, and their reserves have reached about 130 billion Huayuan, almost the largest reserve country in the world.
The reason why Huayuan, which has such a huge reserve is mainly because in the oil and gas settlement in recent years, the proportion of Huayuan has become higher and higher, and they have unknowingly reserved so many Huayuan.
This time, the value-added Huayuan has made the Saudi Emirates a lot of money.
Of course, since Huayuan settles oil and natural gas, and Huayuan uses these Huayuan to purchase various industrial products and agricultural products produced by Cyris, this value-added actually does not show much.
After all, Europe and the United States are very resistant to using the China Yuan settlement, which makes the Hua Yuan in the Saudi-Urban emirates unable to use it.
This is also an important reason why they encouraged Egypt to use the China Yuan settlement.
As long as other countries also use Huayuan settlement, then their Huayuan reserves in Saudi Arabia can be consumed.
In fact, there is no idea of selling off the Saudi-Ukrainian land because Huayuan has a lot of value anchors. Except for oil and natural gas and mineral resources, it is impossible to buy other industrial and agricultural products.
Saudi Arabia itself is the core production area of oil and natural gas, and mineral resources need specific industries to consume. They do not have large-scale heavy industries and labor-intensive light industries, so there is naturally no need to import mineral resources on a large scale.
In essence, Saudi Arabia is a typical resource-based country, while Cyris is a typical industrial and agricultural all-round country. To a certain extent, the two can complement each other.
After all, it is not to sell mineral resources to anyone.
Now the value of American dollars is constantly pouring in water, and Saudi Arabia dare not hold too many American dollars at all. Moreover, there are not many things suitable for purchasing imported products from North America.
Industrial products? Just kidding, there are really not many industrial products in North America that can be used to make a lot of them.
Agricultural products? The global climate change caused by the North Atlantic warm currents, but there was a big trouble in agriculture in North America and Western Europe and Eastern Europe, which led to a surge in global food prices.
Otherwise, Habi and others would not have come to Cyris to purchase food.
Without cheap industrial and agricultural products as value anchors, what else can Meidao do?
Should I buy medicines, plasma, luxury goods, or purchase real estate and financial products in North America?
This is obviously impossible.
The former has limited annual procurement scale, while the latter is no longer willing to buy it.
For example, the US bonds that once dominated the global financial market are now basically unwelcome.
哪怕被强迫购买美债的东瀛、南高丽、欧盟，也通过各种手段，在拖延时间，或者暗中抵制。
There is no way. The US debt crisis has become increasingly serious. Although Cyris still holds nearly 300 billion US dollars in US debt, Cyris is not worried about Amika doing things now.
The reason is very simple. US debt is not a fixed debt, but a liquid debt that can be traded.
In other words, if Amika wants to refute the US debts held by Cyris, the only way is to refute the world's debts.
Otherwise, once Amika announced that he would not repay the US debt held by Cyris, the consequence would be that the global US debt collapsed instantly.
This kind of thing is related to financial credit. If you dare to rely on the US debts held by Cyris today, can you rely on the US debts held by other countries tomorrow?
This is more serious than starting the S3 season directly.
Once there is a problem with financial credit, it will be rebuilt, and the difficulty will rise sharply.
Now Amika is in a very embarrassing and dilemma.
Without injecting water into the US dollar currency pool, their trade deficit is soaring wildly again, and US dollars at home and abroad cannot cycle as quickly as before.
Continuing to inject water into the US will quickly aggravate the depreciation of the US dollar, and at the same time increase the internal living costs, making it difficult for exports to recover quickly.
Obviously, Amika's previous routine of harvesting the world has begun to fail.
The only way to save Amika is actually very simple, that is, to directly cut off the tail and survive. The first step is to freeze all US debts and international US dollars.
The second step is to stop importing all products and resources.
The third step is to force the country to produce short-term products by itself.
This set of solutions is to directly retract back to North America. When a decades-old turtle, with North America's unique geographical location, it will restore industry again, and maybe it can make a comeback.
To achieve the re-start of isolationism, it depends on whether anyone in Amika dares to make this decision and whether he has the ability to deal with all internal forces.
Obviously, there is no such person inside them at the moment.
Therefore, we can only continue to drink poison to quench thirst.
Against this backdrop, all parties around the world have also begun to move, and some regions have even blatantly engaged in China-yuan settlement trade.
For example, if it were the case for the settlement of Huayuan in Saudi Arabia, if they had been in the past, they would have been unable to take advantage of this kind of behavior. Now, Ameika, who is too busy to take care of himself, no longer has much energy to deal with the waves around the world.
…
After talking for a while, Omar was also very eager to directly engage in China Yuan settlement. After all, in this way, they would not suffer losses due to the exchange rate fluctuations between the US dollar and the euro.
At this moment, Alibaba's phone rang: "Sorry, manager, I'll answer the phone."
"It's okay."
More than ten minutes later, Ali came back from outside with an excited smile on his face.
Omar looked at his expression and guessed that there might be some good news: "What makes you so happy?"
"Manager, Deputy Manager Atmu just called me, and he said he couldn't get through your phone, so he called me." Ali explained first, and then continued, "Deputy Manager Atmu just now told me good news."
"Is it easy to talk about here?" Omar reminded.
"It doesn't matter, the news may come out tonight."
"Then just say it!"
"The domestic and Cyris reached an agreement to allow the Chinese Yuan to pay the crossing fee of the Suez Canal."
"Oh?" Omar was immediately overjoyed: "It's indeed good news, but what is the charging standard?"
Alibaba told me what I knew: "A per ton of goods costs 50 yuan."
"50 Chinese Yuan per ton?" Omar estimated in his heart.
Cyris has developed maritime trade. At least 200 million tons of cargoes passing through the Suez Canal every year belong to Cyris. If a fee of 50 Chinese yuan per ton is charged, it will be almost 10 billion Chinese yuan.
Habi has just said that the export price of Cyris's soybeans is 3,100 yuan per ton, plus the transportation cost of several hundred yuan, the landed price per ton is about 3,800 yuan.
If 10 million tons are purchased each year, it will cost 38 billion Huayuan.
It seems that the Suez Canal received the Huayuan, which is not enough to pay for the purchase of soybeans.
But don't forget that Egypt, as the manager of the Suez Canal, has the right to decide what currency to collect as the crossing fee.
As long as they mandate, Huayuan settlement must be adopted, major shipowners can only accept such overbearing terms with their noses.
With the Suez Canal's annual air cargo scale of about 1.5 billion tons, it can collect almost 75 billion Chinese yuan per year.
At that time, not only will there be enough money to buy food, but you can also have a surplus of 37 billion Chinese yuan.
With the current value of Huayuan, they can purchase a large amount of things.
"There is also good news."
"There is good news?"
The excitement on Ali's face was almost uncontrollable: "It's the Gaitara Depression, manager, do you still remember it?"
"Getala Depression?" After recalling for a while, Omar remembered it importantly: "Is it the depression in the northwest of Matru Province?"
"Nothing wrong, that's it."
"What good news is there?"
"The domestic and global water group of Cyris has reached a cooperation agreement. They are willing to build a large seawater desalination factory for us, and plan to draw 50 billion cubic meters of seawater from the Mediterranean every year."
"…" Omar was shocked.
After a while, he came to his senses: "Should there be conditions?"
Ali nodded: "Of course, otherwise why did the Cyris help us? The first condition is that our international trade settlement and Suez Canal will use Huayuan in the future."
"What then?"
"The second condition is that the management and operation of the desalination plant is under the responsibility of Global Water Group, and they hold 100% of the shares."
Omar frowned: "Do we have no equity at all?"
"Because it involves confidential technology, they don't want us to interfere in the management, but this seawater desalination factory is only responsible for supplying fresh water. The specific way to sell water is the responsibility of our local company."
Hearing this, Omar could barely accept it: "What about the price?"
"Referring to Cyris, the ex-factory price is 0.3 Huayuan per cubic meter."
"0.3? That is to say, 15 billion Chinese yuan is required to pay every year? Will this be too much? I mean the amount of water is too much, and the entire depression should not be able to use 50 billion cubic meters of fresh water, right?"
Omar thinks this price is acceptable, which is already very cheap. If it is the current mainstream reverse osmosis seawater desalination factory, the cost may be more than ten times higher.
"That's of course, the entire factory is divided into five phases, with a first phase of 10 billion cubic meters. The country has decided to start the development of the Northwest and build the Gaitara Depression into the second Nile Delta."
"So that's it." Omar breathed a sigh of relief, at least he was not confused in China.
If they set up a 50 billion cubic meters of seawater desalination factory at once, they would not be able to use so much water in a short time and could only inject this water into the depression.
You should know that the altitude of the Getala Depression is lower than the Mediterranean sea surface. Therefore, as long as the barrier between the Mediterranean and the Getala Depression is opened up, the sea water in the Mediterranean can continuously flow into the Getala Depression, and then form a vast inland saltwater lake.
You should know that the area of the Gaitala depression reaches about 18,000 square kilometers. As long as the lake is formed and the seawater desalination factory is established on the shore, fresh water can be continuously obtained.
Moreover, the surrounding area of the Gaitala Depression is deserted, and the local ecology is originally a desert and Gobi Desert, so it is relatively simple to deal with abandoned coarse salt. Find a few relatively large depressions nearby and just dump the coarse salt directly, which is equivalent to an artificial salt mine.
Compared with many millions of new arable land, even if it is a land that is polluted by coarse salt, it is acceptable for Egypt.
After all, with the population exceeding 120 million, arable land in the Nile Delta and Nile Valley is no longer able to support Egypt's food security.
Although the water source of these newly added land was controlled by Cyris's company, they felt that the price was acceptable.
If hundreds of millions of new arable land can be developed, they can quickly alleviate the domestic population pressure and obtain new development opportunities.
There is no mine at home, so I can only charge a little toll, which can't afford Egypt's 120 million population.
"This time, not only will the desalination plant be built, but the Aleman-Nashid Canal will be built, and two hydropower stations will be built at the same time."
When Omar heard about these projects, he was one of the first two big ones: "Such a huge investment? How to solve domestic funds?"
"Of course it's the loan and the sale of operation rights." Alibaba shrugged indifferently.
"It's acceptable." Omar is very clear that it is impossible to get so many investments and projects without a cost.
After all, if you don’t seize this opportunity, once the population pressure continues to expand in the future, you may really explode directly.
As a transportation hub for trade between Europe and Asia, Egypt has a good geographical location, but the natural environment is relatively harsh. If their population can be controlled at around 10 million, they can indeed live a very comfortable life, but their current population has reached 120 million.
For such areas with no resources and advantageous industries and very poor agricultural conditions, the population is so large that it is impossible to effectively transform into human resources, but instead become a time bomb.
Habi, who was standing by, kept silent. He naturally heard these things, but he did not say anything. After all, there was a mine in the family in Saudi Arabia, so he didn't need to gamble like Egypt.
(This chapter ends)