Chapter 949 Undercurrent
When Barron woke up, got up from Bonnie and Countess Chris and walked out of the bedroom, he could feel the silence in the entire villa, and there were also the faint sounds of the busy servants who got up early.
When I put on my sportswear and walked to the lobby, all the traces of last night's party had been cleaned up.
Just yesterday, Barron celebrated his 34th birthday, which was also his twelfth birthday since coming into this world.
Because of the birthday of His Royal Highness the Duke of Devonshire, enthusiastic volunteers distributed winter sleeping bags, blankets, toiletries and rare supplies from the Devonshire Charity Foundation to homeless people throughout London yesterday. food...
Therefore, as a rich man, you still have to assume social responsibility. Just like the Devonshire Charitable Foundation, it spends nearly 100 million on charity every year. It can not only show the charity of the Duke family, but also be tax deductible.
This reminds Barron of his previous life when he saw the stock god Buffett decide to leave only 0.5% of his personal wealth to his children, and donate the remaining 99.5% of the wealth... to the family foundation.
In other words, he is actually prepared to pay inheritance tax on 0.5% of his wealth. He is indeed a role model for our generation.
After exercising as usual, Barron's personal assistant Talulah Riley came to his home. While having breakfast with him, Talulah did not forget to say to him:
"According to your instructions, the plane will take off in an hour. In addition, the high-speed rail line 2 project will be officially launched on the 25th of this month. You still have time to come back and participate in the groundbreaking ceremony..."
Today, Barron will leave for Colo and is expected to return in three days.
As for the high-speed rail Line 2 project, which is responsible for the British First Railway Group, the bidding results were announced at the end of last month. The railway construction project will be mainly undertaken by the Chinese consortium, while the trains and railway systems The supplier, unsurprisingly, fell on Alstom-Bombardier Heavy Industries Group.
To this end, China Development Bank will provide British First Railway Group with a low-interest loan of up to 20 billion pounds for the railway construction of this project.
This part of the loan seems to be a huge amount, but in fact most of it is used to pay for the construction of related enterprises in China. For China, it is equivalent to the left hand and the right hand...
They don't even have to actually come up with so many pounds in foreign exchange - the settlement with relevant Chinese companies can be done directly in Chinese dollars, and when the British First Railway Group repays the loan, the China Development Bank will get actual pounds. .
Many of the loans provided by China for its project construction use this method. For example, some African countries use their minerals and other resources to repay the loans.
This means that after the completion of high-speed rail line 2, the First Railway Group will only need to bear about 10 billion pounds of other investment funds, including trains and other equipment.
The reason why the Chinese consortium was able to successfully obtain the overall construction work of this project is that in addition to the other party's rich construction experience and technology accumulation in high-speed rail, as well as the loans provided by China, they were able to reduce the cost of the entire railway construction by half. It is also one of the main reasons.
And compared to the sluggish construction speed of High-Speed Rail Line 2 before... or in Barron's previous life, the Chinese consortium also shortened the overall construction period to less than 50 months.
Almost between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, High-Speed Rail Line 2 will be completed and operational.
It has to be said that China should have also taken into account the "speciality" of England. Compared with the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway, which has a total length of nearly 2.5 times that of High-speed Railway Line 2, it took 37 months to complete, and it has set a time limit of 50 months for High-speed Railway Line 2. The construction period can be said to be very conservative.
But this, for the current railway construction in England, or for the railway construction in Europe, it is surprisingly ultra-high speed...
…
"After Operation Serval, France still has no plans to end its military operations, and has begun to build military bases in Mali, with the intention of stationing them there for a long time..."
Nigel Inkster said to Barron on the plane to Colo.
Of course, according to the history Barron knows, France's so-called "military operation" in Mali will last for seven years. In the end, under strong protests from the Malian side, it faced surging public opinion and the toughness of the interim government after the coup in Mali. position, had to choose to withdraw.
An interesting scene occurred at that time, that is, France initially sent troops to Mali to help the government forces eliminate the anti-government forces; but later, it became increasingly obvious that French funding was behind the anti-government forces, and the Malian government could only hire "Wagner" mercenaries from Russia came to fight against them.
Also with Wagner's support, Mali had the confidence to break up with France.
In this regard, France can be said to be a bit "angry". Not only Mali, but also Niger and Burkina Faso began to expel French military presence...
The eight countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union and the six countries of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa are also trying to gradually get rid of France's control of their economies.
"France has no uranium mines and mainly imports them from Niger and Kazakhstan. It can be said that one-third of the light bulbs in France are lit by uranium from Niger - without uranium, their nuclear power plants would have no rice to cook..."
Nigel said to Barron:
"That's why French troops are stationed in the uranium-rich town of Alite in Niger. It's hard for France to give up the resources of these African countries..."
The actual situation in Africa at this time is much more complicated. In West Africa, it is not only about the relationship between France and the local government, but also affected by the transatlantic relationship between Europe and North America. Even Russia will come to get involved from time to time.
However, for Colo, or for Barron, what needs to be done is to focus on his interests in West Africa.
Now Colo has formed the West African Free Trade Zone with Niger, Burkina Faso and other countries, and the relationship between them is gradually getting closer.
And recently, Mali is also intending to move closer to the West African Free Trade Zone...
These actions naturally aroused France's vigilance. Even if there are no obvious actions now, some undercurrents have emerged.
"We should try not to confront France directly. After all, no matter what, it's not worth the loss..."
Nigel also agreed with Barron's words:
"This is also our strategy. In terms of contact with Mali and other countries, we have been avoiding direct military cooperation, and we are still starting from the economic aspect..."
