Both Zhao Gong and Xie Gong were frightened by this number and almost jumped up from where they were.

The total funding their institute has received since its establishment is not that much!

How many projects can they carry out with US$400 million?

Even big airplanes can handle it!

During this period, China was still unable to build large aircraft, and 90% of the international civil aviation market was monopolized by two companies, Boeing and Airbus, who made huge profits every year.

And we have to rely on them for a long time.

There was once a widely circulated saying that the price of a shirt exported from China was only 2-3 US dollars, and the gross profit was about 1 US dollars a piece. It would take 800 million shirts to be sold in order to exchange for an Airbus A380 aircraft.

This is not a glorious thing. It highlights the dilemma that China has many labor-intensive industries and low-end manufacturing profits.

Technology is really valuable. If you don't have it, you can only pay a high price to buy products made by others. As for the price at which it is sold to you, it is entirely up to others.

In many high-end industries, China does not even have bargaining power. Only when technical barriers are broken can the other party sit down with you calmly and discuss prices.

But at that time, we didn’t really need it anymore.

Chen Weidong sneered in his heart. He had already been mentally prepared for the island country's sky-high asking price, but he was still a little surprised when he heard them quote the price.

Machine tools currently on the market that cost more than 30 million US dollars can already be described as sky-high prices, let alone this 400 million US dollars.

Even if we get the European market and buy it secretly from the Germans, I'm afraid we can customize almost the same machine tools, and there is no need to buy them from the island country.

It's just that it's all broken down into parts and it's a little more troublesome to transport them back.

Although Infinite Company has money, it is not stupid enough to pay a very high premium to buy something that is obviously not worth that much money.

Tetsuya Nakano and the other seven or eight people from the island nation all had expressions of whether they wanted to buy or not.

They deliberately quoted such a high price just to scare off Chen Weidong and others, hoping that they would give up and just buy some ordinary production lines and low-end equipment.

This is already very advanced for China.

Why do you have to buy such good equipment?

What's more, it's not that we don't sell it, it's that you yourself find it expensive and can't afford it.

We have already given the price.

Gong Zhao and Gong Xie tried their best and communicated with them several times.

However, the island country was not willing to make concessions on the price of this machine. It just insisted on a price of US$400 million, saying that this was already the lowest price.

Both of them are engaged in scientific research and are not negotiation experts. In the end, they could only sigh and parted unhappy.

In fact, the islanders are also worried that selling precision machine tools to China will improve China's manufacturing level, which will reduce the competitiveness of their products, and ultimately the gains outweigh the losses.

After all, the current speed at which China’s technology is catching up has alarmed many countries.

Afterwards, Chen Weidong and the others lost any interest.

After just taking a quick look at the factory, the group returned to the hotel.

Even Nakano Tetsuya invited them to have dinner together, but they all declined.

Six people gathered in Chen Weidong's room, not knowing what to say.

The atmosphere is a bit dull.

They had been shocked too much today and needed to digest it.

Chen Weidong leaned on the sofa and smoked quietly. He knew that he had to come up with a countermeasure at this time, otherwise they would definitely return empty-handed if they continued like this.

Just when he was thinking hard.

Xie Gong on the side hesitated for a moment and suddenly said: "Mr. Chen, I will ask my old friend tomorrow. He works in a private research institute. Maybe they can find a way."

Chen Weidong was shocked and said with some surprise: "Xie Gong, is this true? If it is a private research institute, then things will be much easier to handle!"

Several plans came to his mind instantly, and they might all be useful.

Li Yun and the others asked curiously: "Private research institute? Will their instruments and equipment be more high-end than what we see today?"

Chen Jie didn't understand either and asked: "Why can private individuals in their island country afford to build research institutes? At present, there are not many private research institutes in China."

Xie Gong was hesitant to ask a series of questions. He didn't know how to explain. He was only engaged in scientific research, not economics. He had never thought about this problem.

He hesitated and said: "Maybe people from island countries are richer..."

Chen Weidong put out the cigarette butt in his hand and said, "Let me tell you this question."

"Island people are rich. Their annual gross national product has reached trillions of dollars. They are indeed developed countries. At the same time, they are very willing to invest in scientific research projects."

"According to some data, the island country's annual R&D investment reaches more than three percent of its gross national product! You can calculate this number!"

Chen Jie jumped up from the sofa and said in surprise: "Then their annual investment in scientific research reaches tens of billions of dollars?!"

"What's all the fuss about? In order to maintain technological leadership and prevent being overtaken by others, the islanders are never stingy in their investment in scientific research."

"Besides, after the end of World War II, the island country did not fulfill the war reparations at all. Although their society and the people at the bottom suffered a major blow at that time, those consortiums and large companies still have a lot of wealth with deep foundations!"

"After the Caoxian War broke out, the United States fully stationed its troops in the island countries. The people of the island countries did not need to invest too much in the military, and they had enough energy to develop science and technology, economy, and education!"

"So, those miracles of the thirty years after the war were originally caused by the single-handed support of the United States. Its main purpose was to allow island countries to contain the development of Southeast Asia."

"It's just that later, the island country thought it was rich and wanted to challenge its master. The result was a complete failure. It was wildly harvested by Wall Street in the capital market and fell into thirty years of economic recession..."

Chen Weidong's eloquent talk stunned Li Yun and others. They had never thought that there were so many complicated factors involved.

And everything Chen Weidong showed was seriously inconsistent with the information!

If every high school dropout in China could have this kind of thinking and insight, wouldn’t we be afraid that we wouldn’t be able to take off?

Chen Weidong also realized that he seemed to have deviated from the topic. He became obsessed with talking about these things, so he quickly changed the topic.

"Tomorrow, Xie Gong will contact the research institute, Zhao Gong will contact those factories, Li Yun and you will contact the embassy... Everyone should not be idle and proceed according to the original plan."

He immediately gave the order.

"Awei, what about us?"

Chen Jie paused. Everyone had work to do. He always felt embarrassed if he didn't do anything.

"We don't have a branch in the island country yet. If you register one and recruit some staff, your abilities will be secondary. It's best to be your fanatical fans..."

Chen Weidong had some ideas in his mind and began to speak slowly, while assigning tasks to everyone.
Chapter completed!