Chapter 49: The Factory Director (14)

  There is no such thing as a free lunch, the city helped itself complete in just one month what normally takes more than a year to accomplish through regular channels. It's not that they want to learn from Lei Feng and do good deeds for nothing; there must be something they're after. If the city can help us quickly get the patent, then it's only right that we should give them something in return. Lin Hongfei spoke up readily, "Uncle Wu, I roughly understand what you mean. You're thinking of the motorcycle factory in the city..."

  It's refreshing to talk to smart people, Lin Hongfei's straightforwardness made Director Wu very satisfied. "The intention of the city is that they hope you can authorize the patent to the motorcycle manufacturing factory at a relatively low price."

  According to Beiguan City's idea, it is naturally hoped that Lin Hongfei can sell the patent to the city, but since Lin Hongfei has already mentioned before that he does not have the intention of selling the patent, but rather plans to authorize its use, Director Wu no longer mentions the sale of the patent and instead brings up

  "Authorized use is not a problem, I'm worried about another thing," Lin Hongfei furrowed his brow. "The production of the engine involves many pieces of equipment such as precision casting, molds, and milling machines. Although the technical content of this engine is not high, it still poses some difficulties for the motorcycle manufacturing factory's technical capabilities. It will be necessary to upgrade and replace corresponding production equipment, which will require a significant amount of funding, no less than 100 million... As far as I know, the city's finances are also very tight, can they afford to allocate such a large sum of money?"

  For the fiscal year 1991, although the tax sharing system had not been implemented yet, due to the economic scale, the financial income of local governments at all levels was not much. The financial situation of Beiguan City was also not ideal. The 18 million yuan in technical renovation funds for the city's motorcycle manufacturing plant was something that the municipal finance could hardly squeeze out with gritted teeth. Now, it is almost impossible to let the municipal finance squeeze out another 10 million yuan.

  "You don't have to worry about this," Director Wu seemed confident and self-assured, as if he already had a solution to the problem. Instead, it was the current issue that he was most concerned about. "Hongfei, you also know that the city's finances are tight, and they can't take out too much money either. This patent usage fee..."

  "It's all right, more or less, I have no opinion," Lin Hongfei said readily before Director Wu finished speaking. "We're all contributing to the country anyway, it's what we should do."

  The current national conditions, whether it is the citizens or the government and enterprises, do not pay enough attention to patents. Lin Hongfei was very clear that being able to get the municipal government to spend money to buy patent usage fees from him was already a great achievement. If he didn't have a good father, there would be no patent usage fees.

  Dream on!

  "In that case, I won't be polite. The leader's intention is to pay you a one-time patent use fee of 500,000 yuan first, and then for each car and engine produced afterwards, pay you a patent authorization fee of 100 yuan. What do you think?"

  Lin Hongfei was somewhat surprised, but his surprise wasn't because the amount of money was too much, but rather that it was too little: what a scam! A car that sells for at least 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, and you're giving me a patent authorization fee of only 100 yuan? Can you be any more outrageous?

  In the face of this "major issue", Lin Hongfei couldn't be ambiguous, furrowed his brow and slowly said, "Uncle Wu, since we're discussing cooperation now, if you don't mind, I'd like to share my opinion first."

  Lin Hongfei understood that no matter who he cooperated with, if he agreed to whatever conditions the other party put forward, it wouldn't be cooperation, but rather him being foolish. If today Wu Dayong proposed some conditions and he unconditionally accepted them all without thinking twice, he would definitely give others an impression of himself as "easy to bully", which might lead to countless troubles in the future. Moreover, his own family background also gave him the qualification to haggle with Wu Dayong.

  Wu Dajun also understood that after saying this, the relationship between him and Lin Hongfei had changed. They were no longer a junior and senior meeting, nor was it a leader summoning a subordinate, but rather two partners discussing the terms of their cooperation. At least for now, the two were relatively equal. This feeling made Wu Dajun somewhat uncomfortable, but he was psychologically prepared for this point. Smiling, he said, "That's right, what conditions do you have? As long as they're reasonable, the city will carefully consider them."

  "I'll be straightforward then," Lin Hongfei nodded, although he hadn't prepared these materials beforehand, some of the information was still relatively clear in his mind, and now he could recall it easily. "As far as I know, Construction Motorcycle Group is currently negotiating a cooperation with Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. The framework for the cooperation has been established, and the initial plan is to establish a new joint venture company with a total investment of $81 million, registered capital of $65 million. In this $81 million investment, our side will contribute land and part of the funds, while Yamaha will contribute technology and part of the funds. According to the proportion of shares held by both parties and the amount of Japanese investment, it can be roughly determined that in the total investment of $81 million, the Japanese side's contribution of technology accounts for more than 30% of the company's shares, which means that the technology provided by the Japanese side is worth around $25 million. Moreover, according to the initial agreement reached, if the joint venture company doesn't sell a single vehicle, 5% of the vehicle sales price will be the Japanese side's patent usage fee."

  Director Wu's forehead suddenly started to sweat, and the next words Lin Hongfei didn't say, but how could he not understand? My technology is more advanced than Japan's, with better performance, yet you're giving me only 500,000 yuan? From now on, I'll get a patent usage fee of 100 yuan per car? This is really unreasonable.

  What surprised Director Wu even more was how Lin Hongfei knew about this information? It was as if Lin Hongfei's words had an unspoken meaning: "You're cooperating with the Japanese side like this, and now you're treating me like this, isn't that a bit unfair?"

  "What do you mean?" After a moment of silence, Director Wu spoke again.

  What was just said is naturally not the trump card of Beiguan City, and even Director Wu has more than one card in his hand. But if he can take down Lin Hongfei at the lowest cost, wouldn't that be his own achievement?

  "I know the city's finances are not prosperous, we're all our own people, I won't open my mouth as wide as Ri himself, patent authorization fee is 1 million, no need for US dollars, our own RMB, patent usage fee is 3% of each car's selling price."