Chapter 606 -A New Special District
The truth proved that nothing is impossible.
It was fine to have no taxes, and it was fine to remove tariffs for some goods, but the latter exception made the Malaysian government troubled. While both New Guinea and Papua Province were both on Papua Island and the two countries were connected by a highway, any goods transported through this highway required tariffs to be paid.
Especially when it came to mining resources, Papua was rich in resources throughout the island. The Papua provincial government didn’t want to see New Guinea’s ores flooding into Malaysia to steal their own market share.
But if Future Group was granted a special pass, that meant the border was non-existent to them.
But!
The 5 billion USD investment made it hard for the Malaysian government to give up. Malaysia received a total investment of 174.9 billion Ringgit in 2016, a drop from 186.7 billion in 2015 by 6%. Although the decrease had slowed down compared to the terrifying 21% cliff dive, overall, the Malaysian economic situation was optimistic.
Future Group’s 5 billion USD couldn’t be underestimated. Based on the investment performance of Future Group at the port, one USD of investment attracted at least 1.7 USD in international capital. Even compared with the wealthy Wall Street across the world, Future Group was considered a generous investor.
A lot of investors even closely monitored Future Group’s activity and invested wherever Future Group invested. The trend of following Future Group was best demonstrated in Xin; Future Group’s 10 billion USD investments there drew in at least 13 billion of follow-up investments. Because of the international capital flooding in, it made Coro Island a rising pearl in the west Pacific.
Yu Weida brought Jiang Chen’s words back to Malaysia.
One week later, the Malaysian government sent Jiang Chen a reply.
There was only a short sentence in the letter.
“Cheers to our cooperation.”
The Malaysian government executed the document with the cooperation of the local Papua provincial government to designate the 180-square-kilometer area on the northeastern border of Papua Province as the New Malaysia Special District. Combined with the 40 square kilometers of land negotiated with the New Guinea government, Celestial Trade owned land on Papua Island the size of three Xiangjiangs.
The land was located at the border of the two countries. After the establishment of the special zone, Celestial Trade and Future Group’s employees and vehicles could freely move between the special district and New Guinea. But entering the other area of Papua Province from the special zone would still require custom inspections and tariff charges. It was the equivalent of the Malaysian government moving out the inspection station on the border by ten-something kilometers.
Establishing an industrial zone on the border was similar to the UK industrial zone, but differences also existed. In terms of taxes, the two governments’ tax revenue was split 8:2. In terms of management and administration, Malaysian officials managed the special district.
Jiang Chen was extremely pleased with their compromise, and he was also shockingly surprised.
Malaysia had high hopes regarding Future Group’s prospects and was willing to establish a special zone to attract Jiang Chen’s investment.
Just as Yu Weida said, the education levels of the indigenous people of New Guinea were too low. The production efficiency of the workers was, in fact, related to their education levels. It might not be reflected in the boilers of the steel plant, but it could be seen in other plants.
Take, for example, the parts required to construct a housework robot.
To polish a part of the robot, a worker with an elementary education would require one month of training with an average polishing speed of 31 parts per day, but a worker with a high school education would only require 10 days of training with an average polishing speed of 47 parts per day. A lot of Han and Vietnam descendants who entered New Guinea through Papua Province had production efficiencies that were levels above the indigenous people of New Guinea.
After the approval of the special zone document, Future Group negotiated with the special district government and acquired ownership rights of all 15 square kilometers of land at a symbolic price of 1 USD per square meters.
Immediately, Jiang Chen spent 1.2 billion USD and hired five construction companies to simultaneously start on the construction of roads, residences and other basic infrastructure as well as steel plants, robot part plants and chemical plants for manufacturing MIX1 batteries to connect the plants built at the west end of the port.
The completion of the industrial zone would create 117,000 job positions in Papua Province.
The Capitol.
The atmosphere in the conference room was low-spirited. The thinktanks of the Capitol sat around the table and exchanged opinions regarding the document in front of them. Their faces displayed shock, disbelief, and mostly concern.
Hill sat at the end of the table. The aggressive old woman won the race against her opponent, but since her inauguration, she had never been tested by an incident this scale.
A middle-aged man walked into the room.
All the eyes in the conference room were directed at him, including Hill who sat at the end.
Naomi Martin didn’t waste any words and put the document on the table.
“The results of the autopsy report have come out. The result of death was heart failure … it’s suspected he was killed.”
The conference room became rattled.
Gordon, the F35 pilot, was found not on MLL Island, but in Singapore 2,000 kilometers away. When CIB agents found him through all the clues, he had been dead for half a month.
Why would the F35 fighter pilot suddenly leave the combat zone and strike City K? Why did he not attempt to contact the command center after he parachuted and appeared in Singapore 2,000 kilometers away?
Too many questions were brought into his grave.
But CIB was indeed the hound of UA. When they were conducting a search of the pilot’s apartment, they found a suspicious diary.
30 pages of the 41 pages diary were ripped out. They found a large number of smudges on the 31st page with the only distinguishable thing being a word.
“Kurofune, the black boat.”
“We already discussed this problem.”
“Should we contact the Nippon government? Perhaps they know something.”
“I’ll bet 10 dollars that the ‘Kurofune’ probably is a nightclub that our boys like to go.”
“Luke, we’re in a conference.” Hill used a calm but authoritative voice.
The man named Luke immediately closed his mouth and shrugged at his colleagues.
Then Hill directed her gaze at Naomi, who just entered.
“You’re late, but I guess you have new discoveries, right?”
Naomi took a deep breath and nodded.
“Gordon seemed to be tortured before his death, but based on the statement from his neighbor, no one entered or left his room. From the room, we detected vomit and alcohol… he ingested a large quantity of alcohol before his death.”
“Get to the point; I’m not here to listen to your autopsy report.”
“I am just about to get to the point.” Naomi continued, “based on the analysis of our intelligence personnel, Kurofune should be an organization. And Gordon should’ve contacted the organization before his death. But this wasn’t the most shocking discovery.”
“There’s indirect evidence to prove that Kurofune is perhaps related to that thing we’re researching in Area 51.”
When Naomi finished the last sentence, the entire conference room was dead silent.