"According to our analysis, they are sure that we must purchase equipment from one of them to be so tough. According to their current quote, they can get at least US$60 million in excess profit for each equipment, and 20 units are US$1.2 billion. If they sign a secret agreement and promise that no matter which one wins the bid, they will transfer interests to the other two companies. Then it is entirely possible to join forces to raise the price together." Han Hong explained to Feng Xiaochen.

Feng Xiaochen nodded, and he thought of this just now. Although all countries have so-called "anti-monopoly laws", they need to crack down on such conspiracy. In fact, when international trade is involved, all countries will selectively ignore the monopoly behavior of their own enterprises, because this monopoly harms the interests of consumers in other countries, and the country where the monopoly enterprises are located will not care about it.

If the consumer countries are strong enough, they can naturally impose sanctions on manufacturers and issue huge fines. Later generations such as Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm have all suffered huge fines from other countries, and they have to accept the punishment obediently. The reason is that the other party has the target market of these companies and they have to refuse to admit defeat.

But this time, China cannot punish companies such as Himanz because China needs them to provide equipment and others can wait for a price. In this world, justice always exists within the range of naval guns. For the market, strength determines everything. People are willing to sell a device at a high price of hundreds of millions. What can you do?

"So, what is the opinion of the Planning Commission?" Feng Xiaochen asked.

Han Hong smiled and said, "This question needs to be answered by you, Mr. Feng."

Feng Xiaochen thought for a while and said, "In my opinion, although there is no evidence that Shimanz, Tongyong and Shuangluo are conspiring in price, the facts are already here. If they are not conspiring, it is a strange thing. In the case of conspiracy, it is probably impossible for us to raise prices through negotiations to prompt them to reduce prices."

"We have tried it, and there is basically no possibility." Wang Zhenbin said. He is an official who participated in the negotiations and knows how those companies performed at the negotiation table.

Feng Xiaochen said: "Since this is the case, we only have two plans left. First, accept the high price they offer and suffer the loss. Second, we make it ourselves."

"How sure are you doing yourself?" Han Hong asked seriously.

Feng Xiaochen said: "Yuzhong's long-distance natural gas compressor was developed three years ago. Industrial experiments have been conducted in the past three years, and the experimental results have been very good so far. But objectively speaking, Yuzhong's compressor still has several defects. First, the industrial experiments are not long enough. Many problems were found during the experiment and were corrected. It is not certain whether there are other problems that have not been discovered yet. Secondly, due to the problems in materials and processes, Yuzhong's compressor's expected service life is lower than that of Shimanz and other three companies, and all performance indicators are also slightly inferior. Third, Yuzhong's production capacity is limited, and it is difficult to provide 20 compressors."

Han Hong said: "We have a general understanding of this situation, so in this bidding, we ruled out Yuzhong. The West-East Gas Pipe is a major project that spans a century. The guarantee we made to the central government is foolproof, and Yuzhong's compressor is obviously difficult to meet the foolproof requirements."

"What if we give up the foolproof request?" Feng Xiaochen asked.

"How is this possible!" Han Hong blurted out.

Feng Xiaochen said: "Director Han, in fact, imported equipment cannot meet the foolproof requirements. The reliability of any equipment cannot reach 100%. Their equipment may be able to reach 99.9999%, and we may only have 99.99%, which is just 9 less than them."

Han Hong smiled bitterly and said, "These 9s are also very important. If we can do it for three years without failure, we can only do it for three months. The difference between them is too big. If you don't need reliable equipment, use unreliable equipment you produce. If something goes wrong, who can bear the responsibility?"

"But what if foreign countries embargoes us?" Feng Xiaochen asked.

"Embed?" Han Hong was stunned, then frowned and began to think.

The word embargo is not unfamiliar to the Chinese. After the Sino-Soviet rebelled in the late 1950s, China suffered a technical equipment embargo from the two major camps of the East and the West. The equipment needed for domestic production was almost entirely self-sufficiency. At that time, the most important thing was to solve the problem of "whether there is" and whether it was reliable or not could only be considered as the second priority. In the early 1970s, China-US relations were thawed, and China began to obtain some technical equipment from Western countries, introducing a series of complete sets of equipment including 1700 mm rolling mills, 300,000 tons of synthetic ammonia, and 300,000 tons of ethylene, which increased the industrial level by a step up. But even in the so-called "China-US honeymoon period", Western countries still maintained a high-tech equipment embargo against China, first with the Batumi Agreement and then with the Vassenal Agreement, not to mention a series of actions after the US Blonde Commander came to power.

Chinese industrialists with rich experience in "embargoing" are actually very calm about embargo. Of course, they have to buy advanced equipment. People in the Qing Dynasty understand the principles of learning from foreigners' skills. How can people nowadays not understand? If they can't buy it, then there is no need to be afraid. At worst, they can tighten their belts and do it themselves. Both bombs and one satellite are created like this. What's the big deal?

The National Natural Gas Compressor is actually a big deal. Yuzhong has already created a compressor, but its performance is not as good as Western companies such as Shimanz. If Shimanz's products have reasonable cost-effectiveness and use imported equipment with relatively mature technology to ensure the quality of the West-East Gas Pipeline Project, it is of course a good choice. But now people are asking for prices, and the cost-effectiveness is already very poor. What is the difference between this and the embargo? In this case, why can't we use our own equipment?

As for foolproof, imported equipment will actually fail and have service life constraints. What is the foolproof thing in this world?

"Your idea makes some sense." Han Hong thought for a while and said slowly, "However, the current situation is still different from the foreign embargo after all, because foreign countries do not say that they will not sell it to us, but the price is higher than our expectations. Some experts believe that high prices abroad do not mean that they are extorting us, but that foreign companies pay more attention to product quality. If the product quality is good, the price will naturally be higher. We blindly pursue low prices and give up quality requirements is irresponsible to the country and the people."

"My grass, what expert is this? Do you understand what the pricing mechanism is? A 80 million yuan per unit of food is sold to us and it turns into 140 million yuan. Isn't this called blackmail?" Feng Xiaochen swears directly.

Wang Zhenbin smiled slightly and said, "Youngest, this is the opinion of an expert when we held a meeting last month. This expert, in fact, you know him, is your old acquaintance, Professor Gao Lei."

"Ha!" Feng Xiaochen couldn't help laughing out loud. After a long time of trouble, he was this guy. Back then, he proposed the theory of international cooperation, requiring China to give up the equipment manufacturing industry and focus on being an international assembly factory. As a result, his theory was denied by senior management and practical departments after a while of noisy, and he was also silent for a while. In recent years, he has gradually become active, but the complex of "fear of the foreigners" has never changed. Feng Xiaochen has also read several articles he published and his remarks in interviews with reporters. The tone is basically that foreigners can do everything, China is useless, and China can only kneel down.

"Your plan committee tastes too strong. How could you ask such a chondrhea patient to be an expert?" Feng Xiaochen commented disdainfully.

Han Hong smiled and said, "If you listen sideways, you will be secret, and if you listen both sides, you will be clear. Professor Gao is also an internationally renowned economist. When we hold seminars, we must invite a big expert like him to express our opinions. Besides, he is not the only one who holds similar views, and his views are still relatively representative."

Wang Zhenbin added: "At least six or seven of the ten economists we hired have similar views to Professor Gao. Even if he is not invited, others will say the same."

"Six or seven out of ten?" This time it was Feng Xiaochen's turn to smack his tongue. The circle he usually comes into contact with is mainly industrial, and the most talked about is how to catch up with Western developed countries. He doesn't know that in the circle of economists, the Western universal theory is the mainstream. Do you dare to say that China has the ability to catch up with the West? Do you believe that if someone can get into hundreds of alumni in a minute and jointly sign and ask you to be expelled from your school?

"Director Han, what is your point of view?" Feng Xiaochen turned to Han Hong and asked.

Han Hong smiled faintly and said, "We are just a reference for the views of these scholars. According to some people, there is no need for us to implement industrial policies at all, and there is no need for our Development and Planning Commission to exist at all. To be honest, one time at a meeting, a scholar really proposed that the Development and Planning Commission should be abolished, and said that the existence of the Development and Planning Commission hinders China's development. If we listen to them, we will not work."

"Yeah, this scholar is also a talented scholar." Feng Xiaochen joked.
Chapter completed!