Chapter 71: Going Nationwide, Rushing to Asia

Although Zhongyuan Paper Group and Donghai Paper Group learned that the paper research institute of Aizhi Paper had produced amazing results, they had no lasting strength, but the contact with each other was still very difficult. It finally dragged on to the end of August of that year. After the papermaking company of Ai threatened to transfer the pulping equipment to the papermaking companies in other provinces in the country, it panicked. In the end, it was coordinated by the Liaoning, Hebei, and Shandong Provincial Industry Bureaus in Beijing West The hotel was formally negotiated.
Wang Ai did not attend, but she read the negotiation records every day and discussed with Wang Bin and Secretary Jin in the evening.
Since the opponents are two papermaking groups, in order to save their opponents' face and also raise their own value, on the eve of the negotiations, Ai's paper company and Liaoyang City's papermaking equipment company (a tissue machine manufacturer) in which Ai's paper company holds all the shares. Industry chain-related companies such as Liaoyang Papermaking Chemical Materials Company (caustic soda, hydrogen peroxide and other papermaking chemicals and pharmaceutical manufacturing companies), Liaoyang Xinsheng Plastic Company (plastic bag manufacturing enterprise) and other companies have been integrated into Northern Paper Group.
In the end, the three parties reached the following strategic agreement:
1. Zhongyuan Paper Group and Donghai Paper Group withdrew from the Beijing, Tianjin, Zhangjiakou, Tangshan Four Cities paper (tissue paper, burnt paper, paper towels, etc.) markets. Northern Paper Group (Ai Paper Company and its affiliated investment companies) promised not to enter the civil paper market south of the four cities.
2. Northern Paper Group promises to give priority to the transfer of advanced papermaking equipment and chemical formulas to Zhongyuan Paper Group and Donghai Paper Group. Zhongyuan Papermaking Group and Donghai Papermaking Group promise to keep the above technologies confidential, and once the leakage occurs, they will bear the corresponding losses of North Papermaking Group and compensate them.
Third, in order to avoid fierce price wars leading to market fluctuations, the three parties stipulated that the first line of Beijing-Tianjin-Zhangtang and the first line of Taihang Mountain was used to divide the national paper target market. Northern Paper Group develops the three eastern provinces and eastern Inner Mongolia. Zhongyuan Paper Group and Donghai Paper Group are along the Taihang Mountains, with Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, and Guangzhou as the boundary. Midwest belongs to Zhongyuan Paper Group, and the southeast belongs to Donghai Paper Group.
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Of course, this is not to say that the Central Plains and the East China Sea have withdrawn from Beijing and Tianjin. People in our great capital can only rely on North Paper Group to meet their demands. Due to the transportation cost of civilian paper, local tissue companies can still survive on small profits, let alone Beijing The Tianjin First Line, which is the base of Northern Paper Group, also has other local paper companies in Liaoyang. In such a small market area as the three eastern provinces and eastern Inner Mongolia, Northern Paper Group has not fully occupied, accounting for about 85% of the market share.
Since this agreement is unfair to the Northern Paper Group from the perspective of market division, although it is in Liaoyang, it can reach the Beijing-Tianjin front line because of the extension of the transportation line, but this does not mean that the Northern Paper Group cannot jump to the south Invested to build a factory, so there is no so-called pressure on transportation costs. Therefore, the three parties also signed a private agreement, or a secret agreement, under the clear strategic agreement. Because this agreement is so important that it cannot be made public, it was signed under the witness of the relevant leaders of the Development and Reform Commission.
Because this agreement involves sensitive international markets.
The potential domestic market of Zhongyuan Paper Group is the broadest. The entire Midwest is the development direction of Zhongyuan Paper Group. The target market area of ​​Donghai Paper Group is slightly smaller but more affluent. The Northern Paper Group has the strongest economic strength and independent research capabilities, but the smallest target market. Therefore, in terms of dividing the international market, the two parties made certain concessions to the Northern Paper Group. Specifically, Zhongyuan Paper Group will focus on westward development in the future, and will gradually invest in civilian paper production bases in Xinjiang, Sichuan, Yunnan and other places, targeting the Central Asian and Indian subcontinent. Donghai Paper Group is developing to the southeast. In the future, it will invest in small and medium-sized manufacturing bases in Hunan and Guangdong and prepare to invest in Vietnam, Malaysia and other places. The North Paper Group develops northward, radiating the Russian Far East, the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
In fact, this agreement is still not fair to the Northern Paper Group, because as everyone knows, Japan is a major papermaking country, and Japan Paper, Oji Paper, and King Paper are all strong papermakers in the world.
But Wang Ai still agreed to the agreement. Because the main energy of these papermaking companies in Japan has been in the high-profit industry of printing paper, which has stagnated for many years in the field of civilian paper. This is also because Japan ’s soaring labor costs can only meet the needs of high-margin markets, while China ’s labor costs are extremely low, and it can survive well in the small-profit civilian paper market. The company has a strong technology accumulation, but the investment intensity is far less than that of Northern Paper Group. The northern paper group has more stamina.
At the same time, due to the major sacrifices made by Northern Paper Group and trying to challenge Japan ’s No. 1 position in Asia, the Development and Reform Commission also promised to provide certain support to Northern Paper in terms of policy, mainly in terms of market protection, science and technology transfer, and even In terms of talents, this is one of the important reasons why Wang Ai nodded in agreement.
In the short term, Northern Paper Group has made great sacrifices and challenges the most difficult, but in the long term, challenging Japanese companies will give Northern Paper Group a huge reputation and the trust and support of its superiors, and strengthen the determination of Northern Paper Group to follow the path of scientific and technological research and development. . The Central Plains Paper Group and the Southeast Paper Group tend to have weaker papermaking capabilities in South Asia and Southeast Asia. The external pressure is lower and the profitability is stronger, which also meets the internal needs of multiple companies to form a paper group. In other words, without sufficient external pressure, these two companies cannot transform into a technology-driven papermaking group. Over time, Northern Paper Group will lead China's paper technology research and development, occupying a high level of technology research and development, so although the market is the smallest and the enemy is the strongest, the future development prospects are the best.
After the signing of this agreement, the three major papermaking groups began to focus their efforts back-to-back. In the second half of 1999, Northern Papermaking Group invested in the second papermaking base in Daqing, Heilongjiang, and invested in the third papermaking base in Hunchun, Jilin, and Tongliao in Inner Mongolia. The fourth papermaking base, in addition to firmly grasping the markets of the three eastern provinces, also targeted the Russian Far East, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan and Outer Mongolia. The other two major papermaking groups also invested in new papermaking bases in the central and western markets and the southeast market in accordance with the established plans. Ready to rush out of the country and head for Asia.
Japan's "Sankei Shimbun" and "Asahi Shimbun" and other major newspapers are very sensitive to detect this phenomenon. Although they are not clear about the content of the tripartite agreement, and they cannot understand the content of the non-disclosure agreement, they have regarded China as a papermaking product. The dumping Japanese paper industry still feels threatened.