Chapter 438: Chapter 414: Meeting an Old Acquaintance_1
 

May in Liangxi is indeed a season of pleasant scenery. After a month’s preparation, the old city renovation project, starting with ten batches of old city renovation units, officially opened the curtain on public bidding.

The reason for the month-long preparation time is mainly due to the size of the entire scene. There are ten projects, including four traffic transformation projects. One is the asphalt road transformation project for several main roads in Liangxi. A few years ago, cement roads were popular, but after use, there are many problems. On the one hand, they are prone to decay and, on the other hand, they generate a lot of noise. Now, the most advanced asphalt road technology abroad has attracted the attention of Liangxi City. After multiple considerations, they decided to introduce it.

This kind of asphalt road is the same as the one in political textbooks where capitalists pave the road with cotton. There is a specially made buffer layer beneath the road surface that acts as a shock absorber.

This project alone involves several main roads in the city with total investment exceeding three hundred million yuan. In addition, there are three other traffic projects for road expansion and widening in Xishan, Guicheng and Liangjiang Districts. As many roads are involved, the investment is not small, with an investment of about one hundred million yuan for each.

However, the highlight of this tender is the redevelopment of slums, six projects, six parcels of land, including ground buildings and related relocation of residents. How to resettle them is not a small problem. Among them, even the smaller five projects, two in Xishan District, one in Liangjiang District, one in Guicheng District, each is estimated to invest at least two hundred million yuan. The largest real estate project located in Guicheng District has a land area of over three thousand nine hundred acres involving two street offices and five neighborhood committees. It also includes a stinky lake of more than three hundred acres within Guicheng District. This project is the largest investment project, with an estimated total investment of at least thirty billion yuan.

The Liangxi City Convention and Exhibition Center was built with the new building of the Liangxi City Municipal Party Committee and Government. The azure glass curtain wall reveals a modern atmosphere. The space that can accommodate fifty thousand people at the same time ranks first in Jiangbei Province. Here, it will also be the main venue for the Eastern Development Forum.

At this moment, in the golden hall of the exhibition center, there is a story regarding the name of the golden hall. When naming it, Fan Changsheng hesitated for a moment. However, thinking of the famous Vienna Golden Hall, he chose this cliché name.

At this moment, the Golden Hall is filled with powerful enterprises and companies from all over the country. At the forefront, several main leaders of Liangxi City Committee are seated.

In the middle of the hall, a huge projector is placed. Next to it, a few staff members are working briskly. The preliminary project understanding work has been completed. Yesterday, all bidding companies have submitted the deposit and tender to Liangxi City Government.

Today, under the notarization of Jiangbei Province Notary Office, the opening of tenders and the announcement of the final winning unit will be completed. This makes the atmosphere of the venue somewhat tense.

At this moment, the Secretary-General of the Municipal Party Committee, Hu Youquan, as the host, has gone up, and after a whole heap of polite words, he begins to get to the point: “Distinguished guests, elites of the business community, representatives of enterprises, the bidding ceremony begins now! Now, let’s invite the secretary of the city committee, Comrade Fan Changsheng to open the first tender for us.”

This is merely a formality, with a simple purpose: to convey through the media that this old city renovation project is led and commanded by Fan Changsheng himself.

As for this, Nie Zhenbang does not care. Such tricks and means used on ordinary officials without a background can smear the other’s merits and achievements. However, his identity and background are placed here, which Fan Changsheng cannot erase.

At this moment, Li Guohua’s mouth lifts at the corners, he sneers and whispers: “Idiot, is Nie Zhenbang afraid of such a small trick?”

After Fan Changsheng’s bid opening, the staff also began to work briskly. Beside, more than twenty notaries from Jiangzhou are patrolling strictly.

This bid opening adopts the method of on-site opening and on-site counting. Theoretically, it does indeed reduce the chance of underhand operations. They try their best to be fair, just, reasonable and legal.

After the bid opening, the counting starts, looking at the specific planning layout and renderings from each different project, looking at the investment schedule, and looking at the bid price and conditions that can be offered.

More than an hour later, finally, Hu Youquan took the stage again and announced loudly: “Firstly, we announce the first project, the asphalt road renovation project for main city roads of Liangxi Avenue, Jincheng Avenue, and Yulan Road. For this project, a total of six companies participated in the bidding. Finally, Jiangbei Province Transportation Engineering Company, with an investment of 2.82 billion yuan and a construction period of three months, won the bid successfully.”

After this, Hu Youquan announced the bidding results for several other projects. Naturally, some were delighted, others were gloomy.

At this moment, Nie Zhenbang became somewhat curious. This time, Jiasheng Real Estate and Dongsheng Real Estate have arrived ambitiously. And from his interaction with Zheng Jiawei and Fu Xiaobin, both seemed extremely interested in the projects in Liangxi. However, there hasn’t been any movement up to now. Could it be that they both have their eyes on this last big project?

Thinking of this, Nie Zhenbang instructed Huang Xuyang behind him in a low voice, “Xuyang, can you check what the situation is with Jiasheng and Dongsheng? See if they are participating in the bidding for this last project.”

This time, the project bid invitations of Liangxi City had two completely different types. For municipal infrastructure renovation projects like traffic reform, the lowest bid price, shortest project duration, and overall advantages were considered.

As for real estate projects, it adopted a format similar to an auction. However, it was different from the auction, which simply refers to the land and the buildings on it. After the auction, how to develop and construct is not the government’s concern.

But Nie Zhenbang’s idea was different. This time since it involved urban renewal, there would certainly be disputes if such an approach is used. In later generations, how many tears were shed in countless urban renovation projects. Nie Zhenbang certainly wouldn’t allow such a thing to happen. So, this time the bidding for real estate projects all applied a policy of land prices being 10% cheaper than market prices with other benefits like waiver of construction planning fees. However, every one of these real estate projects would need to provide 20% of the total area, or 20% of the total number of residential houses for affordable housing. These houses would have to be sold to the displaced residents at cost price or below.

The biggest of these projects, according to the present land prices in Liangxi City, has already reached 600,000 per acre even at below market prices, which totals to 2.4 billion for 4000 acres of land. In addition, the 360-acre Neihu increases the land cost greatly.

Furthermore, this project involves more than 1,200 displacement households, meaning that under Nie Zhenbang’s policy, more than 1,200 sets of affordable housing would have to be provided to secure this estate. This doesn’t even include the 10% affordable housing plan within the project.

At this point, Huang Xuyang came from behind and said in a low voice, “Mayor, I’ve found out that Jiasheng, Dongsheng, and Yuedong Construction Company are jointly participating in the bidding for the tenth project.”

Hearing this, Nie Zhenbang calmed down. That made sense. Just the land cost amounts to 2.4 billion, a figure hard for any company to bear. They could secure it, but it would affect the company’s cash flow. So, it was most appropriate to jointly take on this project. As for Yuedong Construction, it certainly has its own agendas. In a joint bid, the infrastructure work in this project would naturally go to Yuedong Construction, which is also a big piece of the pie.

At this moment, Hu Youquan was smiling and said, “Now, let’s invite Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, Fan Changsheng, to personally reveal the final bid for the last project, the tenth project.”

Full of confidence, Fan Changsheng took nine successful bids just now, drawing in billons in funding for Liangxi City. Though nearly 800 million will go to municipal finances, any calculation shows it as a profit. Now comes this big final piece. Fan was somewhat impressed by Nie Zhenbang’s planning.

Then he walked slowly onto the platform, took the envelope from Hu Youquan, and announced with a smile under the scrutiny of the notary public, “The final bid for project ten is…”

Dragging out his voice, Fan Changsheng’s gaze scanned over the crowd, then asserted, “From the Zhou Clan Group in Jingcheng. The bidding price is 3.061 billion.”

As his words fell, Nie Zhenbang was taken aback. His eyebrows furrowed. Zhou Clan Group, he had never heard of it, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

At this moment, Fan Changsheng continued, “Now, let’s invite President Zhou and other company representatives to get ready for the contract signing. Let’s invite the Mayor of Liangxi Municipal People’s Government, Nie Zhenbang.”

In high spirits, Fan Changsheng acted like a night club host. Although puzzled, Nie Zhenbang quickly adjusted. Even though he had a good impression of Zheng Jiawei from Jiasheng and Fu Xiaobin from Dongsheng. But bidding? Naturally, there are winners and losers, Nie Zhenbang wouldn’t ponder too much on it.

Then he adjusted his clothes and went up. However, seeing a certain person coming up next to him, Nie Zhenbang was stunned for a moment, and didn’t anticipate encountering an old acquaintance at this time. (To be continued. If you like this novel, we welcome you to vote, donate monthly tickets at Qidian (qidian.com) your support is my greatest motivation.)