Three days later, the number of applicants exceeded 10 million.
Immigration without thresholds was first welcomed by the poor people in Africa and the Middle East. Those who have more or less access to the Internet and are eager for a better life in the outside world are particularly enthusiastic when signing up.
However, Jiang Chen obviously failed to live up to these people's expectations.
Starring Trading is extremely cautious about volunteers from backward areas. Almost no applicants from Africa are selected, and few people from the Middle East are qualified for interviews.
It's not because of racial discrimination, it's entirely out of security and other considerations. Living habits, religious customs, and even food culture may bring hidden dangers to colonization. In order to reduce this risk, any applicant who has a negative opinion on secularization will not be eligible for interview.
After the interview results came out, Liu Qingpeng couldn't even believe that he, who only had a high school degree, was successfully selected? !
Happiness came so suddenly. He excitedly took a few close workers in the factory out for a drink that day. He resigned from the person in charge of the factory the next day, and then took his identity information to the Ambassador of New Zealand. embassy and obtained a work visa to Koro Island.
Dragging his suitcase, he got off the plane at the airport on Coro Island, and soon he saw the minibus responsible for picking up volunteers.
Most of the people on the minibus were of yellow race, and there were even some of his fellow villagers. There were also many people from Europe, the United States, and Russia sitting in the car, but because of the language barrier, he just looked at these foreign devils curiously and did not communicate too much with them.
The minibus drove onto a ferry, and then the ferry drove to Anga Island. Then the minibus took them to the volunteer community next to the training center.
From now on, they will live here and receive 4 hours of in-venue training and 4 hours of VR training every day.
After six months, they will be divided into different types of work for specialized training based on their performance in training. After one year, their status will be converted from temporary workers to regular workers. Although they are still volunteers, they can already be regarded as quasi-astronauts.
The construction of the space elevator will be carried out simultaneously with the lunar colonization plan. One year later, Star Ring Trading will select 200 of these volunteers as the first batch of colonists to go to the moon, taking this shocking first step in interstellar colonization. step!
…
After the space elevator is completed, a large number of astronauts will be needed in the space station.
Construction of this astronaut training center began long before the space elevator project was launched. On the one hand, it is to provide space station staff to the Star Ring Trade, and on the other hand, it is to provide basic aerospace training for the citizens of the new country, at least to the extent that they can adapt to a gravity-free environment!
"Currently, 30,000 volunteers have arrived in New Zealand for training. Although they have cooperated with Future Travel, the entire aerospace training center is still in a state of loss. According to estimates from the Ministry of Finance, the deficit of the aerospace training center this month is about 800 Between US$10,000 and US$10 million.”
"Losing 100 million a year?"
When he heard Xia Shiyu's report, Jiang Chen's expression did not change much.
The aerospace project is a bottomless pit. He has long been prepared to lose money in the early stage. He has lost more than 100 billion, so does he still care about a mere 100 million
"The budget of the training center remains unchanged, but I want Wei Yun to think of more ways to see if the aerospace training center can make more use of tourism. Don't be responsible for its own profits and losses, just don't lose too much. No, I have no other requests."
"I will tell him." Xia Shiyu nodded.
"Also, how are the negotiations with the Australian company going?" Putting the astronaut training aside, Jiang Chen asked about another issue he was concerned about, which was the food supply for the future space elevator space station and lunar colony base. .
"The company rejected our proposal to acquire farms in northern Australia, even though we offered a premium of 11%. According to the person in charge of negotiating with us there, this decision was made by the parent company Cargill of the United States."
As we all know, 80% of the global grain market is controlled by the four major ACD companies. The four companies are ADM of the United States, Bunge of the United States, Cargill of the United States, and Louis Dreyfus of France. It can be said that global food prices are basically determined by these four companies.
It is not difficult for those who are interested to find that three of the companies belong to the United States. It can be said that the global grain market is basically under the control of the United States. Although the United States has never announced that the grain market must be settled in U.S. dollars, the rice in people's bowls around the world has never left the control of the United States.
During the 2004 soybean crisis, China's crushing companies collectively collapsed. The Americans taught the Chinese, who had just joined the WTO less than three years ago, a painful "trade lesson." To this day, more than ten years later, China's soybean planting industry has not recovered from the crisis that year.
You know, before 2004, China was one of the major soybean-producing countries.
This is no longer the barbaric Victorian era. The battlefield between countries no longer relies on reckless actions with real swords and guns. By using the invisible lever of the market, it can even do things that nuclear weapons cannot.
Whether it is an orbiting space station or a lunar base, the only industry that is difficult to be self-sufficient is food production. Even if hydroponics and aeroponics are used, it is difficult to control the high production costs.
With the space elevator, the cost of transporting food to outer space will be greatly reduced, but it is still difficult to escape the control of the four ACD companies from the source.
At present, Xin Guo's food basically depends on imports from Australia. If Jiang Chen takes action on the US dollar, there is no doubt that the United States will attack Xin Guo in the grain market.
The new country, which relies entirely on imports for production from grains to dairy products, is undefended in the grain market.
There is only one way to minimize price fluctuations in the international market, and that is to produce it yourself and change from an importing country to an exporting country! Even if the rice does not grow on the land of Koro Island, it must grow on overseas farms controlled by New Zealand's own companies.
Achieving self-sufficiency in food production is crucial to the future development of Star Ring Trade! Therefore, Jiang Chen asked Xia Shiyu to propose an asset acquisition plan to the company that monopolized Australia's grain exports, hoping to acquire 400,000 acres of farms in northern Australia from it.
Unfortunately, Cargill, the holding company of the United States, is not willing to give up the farms in its hands, although the 400,000 acres of farms only account for a small part of the farmland held by the company.
"How about contacting Cargill in the United States?"
"They don't want to talk at all." Xia Shiyu shook her head. "My suggestion is to register a subsidiary in Australia and acquire farms from Australian farmers through the subsidiary... Although the cost and efficiency of doing so are not directly proportional, it is certainly much less difficult than pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth."
As one of the breadbaskets of Asia, the Australian agricultural product market is quite mature, and no farmers are willing to sell their farms. After all, many Australian farmers have made a living on this for generations, and they will not be able to find a farm if they lose it. Do other work.
Unless Futureman Group offers a very high premium, they will not nod at all.
Jiang Chen was also in trouble for a while.
Everything about Xinguo is good, but the area is a bit small. When he was choosing his base, he didn't think that far ahead. He thought that with economic globalization, he could buy anything if he had money or lack of money. However, when the price became bigger, he realized that things were far from being as simple as he had imagined.
What a shame, if only the territorial sea of several thousand square kilometers could be replaced by land... Wait!
Thinking of this, Jiang Chen's eyes suddenly lit up.
Wouldn’t it be enough to build the farm on the sea? (.)