Chapter 1244 – Automobile Industry Conference

When Toyota is contacting other automobile manufacturers to suppress Songjiang Motors, China’s automobile manufacturers are rushing to Ji City. This year’s Automobile Industry Conference is organized by FAW.

Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had tried to bid to host this conference but lost to FAW. Most automobile manufacturers had voted for FAW, and only the Government Officials voted for Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group.

But Li Mingde believes that the conference after next will be held in Harbin. To be fair, the next conference will be held in the South, and the one after that should be in the North again.

FAW had finally stood out from the rest. They are currently in the third position, but had won the bid against the first position’s Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group. They are not far from overtaking SAIC, which is in the second position.

FAW’s General Manager Zhao stood on the stage proudly and reported his company’s progress and developments.

After Manager Zhao finishes his speech, the audience clapped nonchalantly. They are all competitors, and some are jealous and unhappy with FAW. But Li Mingde looks furious.

“Now is the Q&A session. If anyone has any questions on the report I said, I will answer them now.”

Li Mingde immediately raises his hand along with other manufacturers’ representatives. But Manager Zhao pretended not to see him and pointed to a small manufacturer’s representative.

“What do you mean by Benefiting the People’s projects?”

“I will answer your question now. Our FAW’s headquarters is in Ji City, and we had made significant contributions to the City. For example, we had repaired four roads, two gardens, planted 30,000 trees, two schools, a hospital, etc. These are all projects that will benefit our people.”

Manager Zhao is glad that this person asked this question, which gave him a chance to tell everyone what FAW had did.

“This representative. What queries do you have?”

Li Mingde puts down his hand again as Manager Zhao pointed to another person.

“FAW had made some breakthroughs in machinery parts and is exported to Europe. What is the proportion of the exported parts against your total production?”

“That’s right. Some of our manufactured parts have reached international standards, and we had received lots of orders from overseas manufacturers. We have exported the parts to Europe and Japan, and the proportion is around 9.73% of our total production.” Manager Zhao announced proudly as if it is something great.

Li Mingde smacked his lips. It’s just some spare parts, and not many profits can be made. What’s there to be proud of? Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group had exported their vehicles a long time ago and has the most advanced technologies in China. Within ten years, their technologies will reach international standards.

What’s there to boast with such small achievements?

What are those representatives asking? Can’t they ask something more meaningful? But they are small manufacturers, and some are only spare parts manufacturers. Maybe they are FAW’s downstream and is trying to make FAW looks good.

At this time, another person Manager Zhao detest raised his hand. It’s SAIC’s Manager Zhou. Manager Zhao does not want to see Manager Zhou and Li Mingde asking questions.

But Manager Zhou did not care whether if Manager Zhao picks him. He just stood up, and everyone else puts down their hand.

“Manager Zhou, what questions do you have?”

“I want to ask about FAW’s last year annual sales figures, and how much is the profit. Also, what is the proportion of joint venture cars?”

This is a pointed question. FAW’s sales are lagging behind Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group and SAIC. Their joint venture car’s sales proportion is much higher and had almost stopped their production of Hongqi.

“Our total production for last year is over 460,000 units, and our sales are 461,000 units. The joint venture cars’ proportion is around 68.3%. As for our profits, it is confidential.” Manager Zhao replied unhappily.

When you hosted the Automobile Industry Conference, you also did not reveal your profits. The profits can be reported to the higher-ups, but not to competitors!

“Then how can you claim FAW had produced 15% of our country’s total production with 460,000 units?”

“Our total automobile production is less than 3 million units, and our production is 460,000 units. Why is it not 15%?” Manager Zhao is unhappy. This is a simple calculation, and he is not wrong!

Manager Zhou replied. “I think you had forgotten to include your neighbor’s figures. Manager Li, do you have something to say?”

Manager Zhou sat down, and Li Mingde stood up. He also has something to ask.

“Manager Zhao, how did you get the figure of 3 million vehicles sold last year? Just last year alone, our Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s automobile sales had exceeded 1 million. The other manufacturers’ total sales are also more than 2.3 million units, and the total should be more than 3.3 million. How come you all calculated it as less than 3 million units? How did you get such simple figures wrong?”

“Manager Li, your figures include overseas joint ventures and export sales. That is different.”

“Why is it different? Our Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group has the majority shares of all our overseas joint ventures. If you insist it is different, then our cars are exporting to create wealth for our country. Other than this, I cannot see any difference.”

Why are our overseas production not included? Our joint ventured cars are not included, but you all can be included? Li Mingde had wanted to wait until there are lesser people before he asked this question. But since Manager Zhou asked, he doesn’t mind asking this now.

Anyway, Li Mingde had retired and is employed by Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group as their Chairman. Even the government leaders don’t dare to offend him when he is mad!

“What’s wrong? You can’t answer this? Fine. I will take it as you all had miscalculated this figure and will ask again later. You mentioned the Benefiting the People’s projects earlier. I want to ask you, what is the average salary of your FAW workers? What is the highest and lowest salary? How do you allocate your profits?” Li Mingde asked another difficult question.

Benefiting the people… if FAW cannot even raise their workers’ salaries, what’s the point of doing these vanity projects?

Manager Zhao’s facial expressions changed. He knew these two are up to no good and is trying to embarrass him.

Everyone in China knows Bing City Machinery Manufacturing Group’s average salary is the highest in the country. If it was not for the City Government’s salary ceiling, it might be even higher. Their workers’ annual bonuses are higher than their annual salaries. This is going around the government’s regulations. As their neighbor, FAW is under tremendous stress.

We also want to give out high salaries, but we don’t have such high profits!

“Manager Ki, this is also confidential!”

Li Mingde let out a ‘hmph’ and sat down. If it was not for the government’s Industry bureau leader beside him, pulling him back, he would not let Manager Zhao off. You can boast about yourself, but you cannot exclude our figures to make yourself look good!

Translator’s notes: The author wrote Ji City, but I think he refers to Jilin Province.

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