"It seems that you have also noticed this problem." Sevini nodded to Xu Yi. "This shows that this problem is very serious and cannot be delayed any longer."
"Delay?" Xu Yi frowned slightly. "What? Is it difficult to change this?"
When Xu Yi saw the crowding at the gate of Anvilmar City just now, he thought about canceling the city entry tax.
And when he entered the city and had not had time to meet Steele, he was directly found by a waiter sent by the palace, and informed that Her Majesty the Queen would summon him as soon as possible.
It just so happened that Xu Yi also had many things that needed to be settled with Sevigny as soon as possible, so he asked Liz, Linda, and Yanis to escort Freya to the agreed place to meet Steele, while he followed the waiter into the palace to meet him. Sevigny.
As soon as he saw Sevigny, Xu Yi first told what he saw at the city gate, and then proposed to Sevigny to cancel the city entry tax, which was obviously outdated.
Sevigny agreed very much with his proposal, but now he seemed to have encountered some difficulties.
"Of course." Sevini spread his hands, looking slightly helpless. "City gate tax has always been an important source of revenue for major cities in the Kingdom. If you want to abolish it all at once, it will of course arouse opposition from many people." "How old is this? There are still cities that rely on city entry tax as their main tax revenue. ?”
Sevini rolled his eyes at Xu Yi: "Of course, everywhere is the same as Bangta City. The annual tax revenue even exceeds two million gold coins. Don't you need to worry about a mere city entry tax? Let me tell you, based on this year's financial statistics. Lan Among the total of thirty-seven cities in the Pali Kingdom, the annual tax revenue of more than half of them is less than 200,000 gold coins. For these cities, they can collect more than 50,000 gold coins a year. Taxes, of course, are very important.”
Xu Yi couldn't help but shook his head: "There are obviously good examples like Bangta City in the kingdom, but they don't know how to learn from it, and still stick to the ancient traditions to live in poverty as before. What on earth are the city lords of these cities thinking? Sevini, this should be regarded as a dereliction of duty by Her Majesty the Queen, right? They are all cities in the Lampali Kingdom, so you can’t favor one over the other.”
Sevini snorted softly, pouting slightly like a little girl.
"Do you think I don't want all the cities in the kingdom to be as wealthy as Bangta City? But this will take time. Besides, the situation of every city in the kingdom is different. Take the Northwest Province. For several cities, because the terrain there is very complicated, it used to be extremely difficult to build a road, and the transportation was extremely difficult. If it were you, would you be willing to invest in building a factory there? "He is a businessman, of course. Choose the method that maximizes profits.
The investment cost required to invest and build a factory in a remote mountainous area with extremely inconvenient transportation like the Northwest Province would be several times that of investing in and building a factory in other cities. Of course, he would not engage in such a loss-making business.
"So, no matter how much I want to change the situation of the entire kingdom, I can only do it slowly." Sevini glanced at Xu Yi. "Isn't this what you often said to me before?"
Xu Yi touched his nose. He thought that he was not in his position and did not want to do his job, and he was not the king of Lampali Kingdom. Naturally, there is no need to worry about the entire Lampali Kingdom.
"But this matter is not without a solution." Xu Yi suddenly changed the subject. "Take the city entry tax as an example. If the entire kingdom is reformed at the same time, there will be opposition, so just select a few pilot projects first."
"Pilot?" Sevini looked at Xu Yi doubtfully.
"Do you still remember that I hoped that His Majesty Lampali XIII would set up the Bangta City area as a special economic zone?" Xu Yi asked again.
"Well, that was a good idea, but unfortunately, due to the changes in the situation in the kingdom, I could not continue to implement it. I had previously considered re-implementing this plan, but I temporarily shelved it because of concerns." Sevini said.
"Now is different from before. In the past, I wanted Bangta City to become a special economic zone so that I could make some reforms in Bangta City. But now that the entire kingdom is under your control, why bother to forcibly set aside a special economic zone? What? Of course, this plan is used to change the city entry tax, that is, you can first select a few cities as a pilot and let these cities cancel the city entry tax as an experiment.
"I understand what you mean." Sevini nodded. "If the test results are good, then other cities will have no reason to object. But what if the effect is not good? And even if the effect is good, some cities in the kingdom do not have the conditions to cancel the city entry tax, so what should we do? "
"Simple, you can forcefully implement this reform plan when the time comes. As for those cities that are not in a good condition, like several cities in the Western Province, just provide subsidies and special support from the kingdom's finances."
Xu also described the practical feasibility of this plan to Sevini based on the various reform plans he had obtained on Earth.
Although he didn't know how the details should be implemented, he was not a talent in this area, so he only needed to put forward the general direction.
After hearing these general plans, Sevini's eyes lit up, apparently he had found the answer in his heart.
"In addition, just providing subsidies from the kingdom's finances cannot fundamentally solve this problem, nor can it allow those cities with poorer conditions to achieve fundamental changes. So I suggest that we find other ways to solve the problems of these cities and increase their tax revenue. , that’s the key.”
Sevini glared at Xu Yi: "You made it easy. If there was such a good method, I would have used it long ago."
After saying that, seeing the half-smiling expression on Xu Yi's face, Sevini immediately felt something in her heart: "You already have a solution in mind, right?"
Xu Yi smiled slightly: "This is just a superficial idea of mine, not really a solution."
"Don't worry so much, let's talk about it?" Sevini looked very interested.
Xu Yi coughed lightly and spoke slowly.
"Since different cities have different conditions, then don't limit each city to become rich by developing magic industry like Bonta City. After all, besides magic industry, there are many other industries that can make money. ”
Sevini was slightly startled.
Hearing from Xu Yi, the president of the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce, his proposal to develop industries other than the magic industry was really beyond her expectations.
"For example... Batru City. When I passed by Batru City last time, I found that Batru City does not have any scarce resources, and because it has many mountains and rivers, the terrain is not good, so development is very restricted. But there are Another very valuable resource.”
"What resources?" Sevini asked while recalling the information about Batru City that he had seen before, but still couldn't think of anything noteworthy.
"It's the hot spring."
"Hot spring?" Sevini frowned slightly. "I heard that there are many natural hot springs in the mountains near Batru City. It is very comfortable to soak in them. But what's the use?"
"Of course it works." Xu Yi raised his voice exaggeratedly. "Hot springs not only represent excellent tourism resources, but also represent a large number of geothermal resources. If it can be used well, Batru City can definitely be turned into a hot spring city and attract many people to travel there. And because of its rich geothermal resources, the entire city of Batru actually only needs a little development to meet this requirement.”…
"Hot spring city?" Sevini frowned and thought for a while, then nodded slightly. "This is a good proposal, but it will definitely require a lot of initial investment, which is a problem..."
After lowering his head and thinking for a while, Sevini realized that this was definitely not something that could be thought of in detail in a short while, so he put it aside and asked Xu Yi: "What about those cities in the Northwest Province? There is nothing there. Rich in hot spring resources, the terrain is even worse than that of Batru City. What can you do to change this situation? "
Xu Yi chuckled: "My beloved Queen, in fact, if you are willing, no matter how complex and harsh the terrain of the cities in the Northwest Province is, there is a way to build a road in them to make their traffic smooth. oh."
Sevini sighed and shook his head: "No. I have asked the Armley Chamber of Commerce to conduct on-site exploration. President Cruz personally told me that their chamber of commerce can't do anything. Even the Armley Chamber of Commerce can't do it. I think this is simply impossible.”
Xu Yi laughed and said: "That's because President Cruise has not discussed it with me before. If he knew that our chamber of commerce would soon be able to develop new engineering magic machines with higher power and higher performance, I believe he would definitely I will take this back."
Sevini looked at Xu Yi up and down, with an angry and funny expression on his face.
"After working on it for a long time, it turns out that you came to me to sell the latest products of your chamber of commerce? President Xu, if you have the time to promote your newly developed engineering magic machinery, then I would like to ask, what did I order from your chamber of commerce? When will the one hundred magic airships be delivered? If there are those one hundred magic airships, I think any responsible terrain will not be an obstacle, right?"
"Well..." Xu Yi smiled awkwardly. "Your Majesty, the magic airship will also be greatly limited and not as powerful as you think. As for when it will be delivered... our chamber of commerce is working hard to increase production capacity. I believe it won't take long to give you an accurate answer."
Sevini snorted coldly, but did not continue to question Xu Yi.
Xu Yi wiped his sweat and decided to put this topic aside for now. He felt in his arms, took out a thin booklet and handed it over.
"When I first entered the city, I saw many magic motorcycles of various kinds waiting outside the city gate. I suddenly thought of a question, so I wrote it down and asked Her Majesty the Queen to take a look."
Of course Sevini would not believe that this booklet was compiled by Xu Yi on the spur of the moment, but seeing his expression so solemn, he nodded and took it.
When I opened the cover, I found a long title written in large letters on the first page - On the important role of energy standardization in the magic industrial system.