The fierce dispute within the government did not subside as time went on. Instead, it became more intense. Please search for it! Li Hongzhang is a very smart person. He knows that a person of his status should not come out at this time. Hence, when someone approached Li Hongzhang, his first reaction was to be cautious.
"Director Li, you are now in charge of Korea's affairs. I would like to ask you about the futures market." Hunan Provincial Party Secretary Liu Bufan spoke politely.
Li Hongzhang is Li Hongzhang, after all. He was polite and sincere, and Li Hongzhang explained it to him. Futures are completely different from commodities. Futures are commodities that can be traded. Futures are not commodities, but standardized tradable contracts that use common products such as cotton, soybeans, oil, etc., and financial assets such as stocks and bonds as the subject matter. Hence, the subject matter can be a commodity (such as gold, crude oil, agricultural products), or a financial instrument.
Vézé can't do futures in China. There are all kinds of complicated issues in China. At this stage, Vézé knows that he can't expect the country to do things according to a unified standard. But futures are very important. Hence, he started futures in Korea, Vietnam, and Siam. This futures is mainly for crops, minerals, ginseng, and other plants.
Although Li Hongzhang doesn't know Vézé's exact thoughts, he is smart enough to do futures. As a demoted general, Director Li has no right to order the country's founding fathers around. But overseas, Li Hongzhang represented the great China, the dignified Shangguo. Even if he is just a director, the director of the Office of Foreign Economic Relations can make small countries bow down to him.
After listening to Li Hongzhang's introduction, Liu Bufan kept nodding. When Li Hongzhang finished talking about the implementation of futures, Liu Bufan asked a question. "Director Li, do you have any suggestions if a province in China, such as our Hunan Province, wants to do futures?"
Li Hongzhang was stunned. He did not expect China to be involved in futures. It was easy to do futures trading in foreign countries. China, as the buyer, would first set some standards. For example, for the ginseng cultivated by Korea, the type of ginseng was naturally the most important condition. Weight, volume, and hardness were also the corresponding supplementary conditions. Once the standards for the ginseng were set, the Goryeo landlords and the tyrants who owned the forests could start producing the ginseng according to these standards.
Since futures could be bought and sold, the Korean ginseng production "unit" could use the future sales of ginseng as collateral to raise funds from the China futures office in Korea. Although Li Hongzhang was very cautious, with the help of Yuan Weiting and Wang Shizhen, the basic investigation went very smoothly. What's more, there was an unexpected surprise in the content. When China wanted to investigate the internal situation of Korea, the Koreans were extremely wary. Not only did they refuse to cooperate, they even intentionally obstructed him.
Now that they could get important funds from the futures market, the cooperation of the Koreans had changed by 180 degrees. Although they still did not dare to reveal all their assets, the Koreans knew that if they could not let the rich people from China have full confidence in the local people, the Chinese would not release their money to them. Therefore, the information was collected at a very fast speed. There were stubborn people everywhere. Li Hongzhang and the rest just had to give up on these blockheads. Under the operation of "funds and credit," there were many people who were willing to lower their heads to China's capital.
However, Li Hongzhang was not confident that these models, which relied on strong promotion in foreign countries, could be transplanted into China. He said awkwardly, "Secretary Liu, what exactly is Hunan going to standardize? You should know that if there is no standardization, the futures market does not have enough manpower to distinguish them one by one. This is the futures market, not a pawnshop. "
"Haha!" Liu Bufan was amused by the word pawnshop. In fact, he was worried that the futures market would become a pawnshop in the end. It was not uncommon to bully the farmers in Hunan, but he had no choice but to go to the pawnshop. However, Hunan was not prepared to do this. Since this was a policy move, and the Hunan government was the one making the move, there was no guarantee that people would spread rumors if they were too ruthless.
"Isn't standardization the quality of the goods?" Liu Bufan asked.
This was the main point, but it was not the fundamental point. Everything could be designed perfectly in theory, but the problem was the implementation would be beyond recognition. For example, in the ginseng futures market, the Koreans would always think of ways to use ginseng that was lower than the standard of the futures market to obtain a higher grade. There were people who were serious about doing business, but an unscrupulous businessman could cause the futures market to lose a lot of money. To prevent this problem, they had to invest more manpower and pay more costs to increase the inspection content. The extra costs would, of course, be allocated to the overall operating costs. If it was a more expensive product like ginseng, it would not be obvious. But for bulk commodities, it would involve more costs.
Li Hongzhang, Chief Li, quickly said. "Now, we are only doing small-scale futures trading. We do not have any experience in large-scale trading."
"Then, do you have any suggestions for large-scale trading?" Liu Bufan asked.
Li Hongzhang kept quiet for the time being. He had thought of doing futures trading in China in the future. But in the current situation, doing futures trading in China requires the government to manage the market. What's the big deal if Hunan Province sets up its own futures market? Even though he was overseas, Chief Li knew about the disputes between the provincial governments and ministries in China. He could sense danger from Liu Bufan's words. Li Hongzhang thought for a while and smiled. "Secretary Liu, I don't know much about Hunan. This kind of thing can only be decided by Hunan. Even if you want me to help, I can only give my suggestions …"
Liu Bufan laughed and said, "Director Li, I heard that you are doing well in Korea. That's why I wanted to ask for your help. Why don't we do it this way? I'll make a report, and you can agree to it. Then you can come to Hunan to work. Isn't it better to build a career in Hunan than in Korea? What do you think? Don't worry. When you are in Hunan, I will definitely help you get promoted by half a rank. "
Li Zhongtang, who was from another time and space, was tempted by such a straightforward offer. If Li Hongzhang did not get promoted by half a rank, his career would come to an end. Soon, Chief Li would retire with honor. Retirement with honor was good, but compared to power, being a government official was more attractive.
But Li Hongzhang felt uneasy from Liu Bufan's invitation. Li Hongzhang was technically a government official. If he jumped to the local government, would the government agree?
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