Treat young comrades with less severity, Secretary Ye also revealed a smile, encouraging Han Yu to speak boldly with a smile.

Han Yu regained his composure and asked, "Mayor Qian, are you saying to establish a maritime enterprise?"

"We have a shipping company in Linghai, you are a child of the shipping company, do you think we can grow and strengthen based on the foundation of Linghai Shipping Company?"

"Secretary Ye, Mayor Qian, all leaders, the ships built in recent years are getting more and more numerous and bigger, Yangtze River Water Transport is fiercely competitive, and maritime competition is just as fierce, it's difficult for Linghai Shipping Company to transition to maritime."

"Where is the difficulty?"

"Firstly in terms of financial strength, building a ten thousand-ton sea ship is very difficult for us in Linghai, but there are too many bulk carriers below ten thousand tons engaged in coastal transportations. Our management at Linghai Shipping Company can't keep up, and we even have no experience in maritime, how can we compete against others."

Fearing that the city leaders wouldn't believe it, Han Yu cited a case: "I studied for over four years in the East Sea Shipping Bureau, a true large-scale maritime enterprise, but because the management couldn't keep up, their passenger services are declining year by year, and coastal transportation isn't making much money, only sustained by renting those dozen of ocean container ships."

"Can we use Linghai Port as our mother port to engage in ocean cargo transport?"

"There's a mountain of difference between professions, I think it's very hard for us to do it ourselves."

Mayor Qian pursued further: "Is there a relatively easier option?"

Seeing the young man deep in thought, Secretary Ye bluntly smiled and said, "As long as it can make money, as long as it can generate exchange earnings, anything is fine. Think about it based on our reality if there is a way in this regard."

"Earlier you mentioned sailor training; perhaps we can try using Linghai Vocational School as a base, relying on Binjiang Port Supervision Bureau, in partnership with Binjiang Shipping College, to genuinely start sailor training. By then, we could either invest ourselves or bring in a few ship agencies specially for outsourcing sailors."

"Can that generate exchange earnings?"

"Of course, sailors serving on foreign ships earn in US dollars. A regular mechanic sailor can earn ten to twenty thousand US dollars a year. If we can start outsourcing sailors, sending out five hundred sailors a year could generate five to six million US dollars in exchange earnings."

"Mayor Shen, this is an idea, we need talents in our port district, next up we need to ask Binjiang Shipping College to help us train some students specialized in port machinery and port operations, we can completely talk to Binjiang Shipping College again, see if they can set up a sailor training class in Linghai, this is also a type of industry-education-research."

"Secretary Ye, just leave this job to Salted Fish."

"You mention this and I remember, Binjiang Shipping College is Comrade Han Yu's alma mater."

"Not just Salted Fish and Comrade Han Xiangning's alma mater, Dean Shao of the Shipping Academy was also the marriage witness for Salted Fish and Comrade Han Xiangning."

"Great, Comrade Han Yu, you will be responsible for this job." Secretary Ye laughed heartily, signaling Han Yu to proceed.

This is becoming less and less like a public security police.

Han Yu found it somewhat absurd, but thinking that all three city leaders were from other places, and were so eager for Linghai's economic development, as a native Linghai person, he must contribute to the hometown construction, he quickly said, "The just-started Linghai Shipyard has limited technical strength, even after completion it could only build river ships, but we can fully consider supporting them to engage in sea ship maintenance."

Mayor Qian thought for a moment, then couldn't help laughing: "Maintaining sea ships, especially foreign ships can also generate exchange earnings!"

"That's exactly what I was thinking."

"How do we attract maintenance business?"

"Find a ship agent, ask the ship agent to help introduce it."

"Do we have competitiveness?"

"When I was at the Marine Bureau, I participated in several major repairs of nearshore passenger and cargo ships. Working by the Yangtze River all these years, I've also seen numerous cargo ship repairs, and I'm quite familiar with several shipyards along the Linghai Coastline. I believe that as long as our Linghai shipyards enhance their technical capabilities, they can have a competitive edge in repair costs over those large ship repair and construction yards."

Seeing the city leaders interested, Han Yu promptly got up to fetch a water area map and spread it in front of the leaders, explaining: "A journey of thirty to forty nautical miles is not much for cargo ships needing repairs. This means that as long as Linghai Port has the capability, our service scope could even extend to the East Sea."

"Interesting, go on."

"I know several predecessors from large ship repair yards like the East Sea Port, and we could mobilize a few ship repair enterprises along the Linghai Coastline to hire retired shipbuilders with rich experience. However, if we truly want to undertake foreign vessel repair business, we definitely cannot bypass departments such as the Port Supervision Bureau, Customs, Border Inspection, and Health Inspection.

Some ship repairs don't necessarily need to enter a dry dock; there are many private shipbuilding enterprises in Zhehai that don't have docks.

In any case, as long as we keep up with technical capabilities and can secure support from the Port Supervision, Customs, and Border Inspection, we don't need to wait for the port to be built to start this business."

Han Yu paused, then continued: "Once we get the ship repair business going, we can then use it to attract investment, encouraging local and foreign ship parts manufacturers to set up in our Port District."

This is exactly the strategic positioning for the Port District by the city!

Secretary Ye grew more pleased as he thought about it and turned around with a smile: "Mayor Shen, Xiao Han's approach is spot on, you and Comrade Guang Yu should study this thoroughly."

"Understood."

"Xiao Han, please continue."

"Deep-sea shipping, especially container transport, is currently the main profit source of the East Sea Shipping Bureau. This shows that as the domestic import and export economy grows, the demand for containers will only increase. Recently at Binjiang Port, a friend from the Port Authority told me that the Binjiang Zhongji Group has more orders than they can handle."

Han Yu touched the corner of his mouth, continuing: "The technology required to build containers is not very high; their length, width, and height are all standardized. As long as you have the license, as long as you can apply for the relevant qualifications, even the companies transforming the current Dunship's steel structures could manufacture them without worrying about a lack of sales."

Vice Mayor Shen saw this also as a viable idea and looked up with a smile: "Secretary Ye, Mayor Qian, we can walk on two legs: firstly, making container manufacturing enterprises a key focus of our investment attraction, and secondly, rallying Linghai Enterprises for upgrades and transformations."

"That's right, we need to free our minds!"

Secretary Ye nodded in satisfaction and then asked with a smile: "Xiao Han, you've served on ocean vessels, traveled to many countries, and have always paid close attention to maritime shipping and ship construction technology. Do you know if there are any international fairs or exhibitions related to shipping and shipbuilding, ship parts, etc.?"

Without hesitation, Han Yu replied, "Yes, there are quite a few."

"Please gather information on this as soon as possible."

Secretary Ye turned back, staring intently at Vice Mayor Shen and Director Miao, and said very seriously, "Our next key task is to attract foreign investment, which means that we can't just sit at home to invite investments, nor solely rely on the few investment representatives soon to be stationed in the East Sea. We need to take bigger steps, venture out to meet foreign investors, allowing them to understand Linghai better."

Mayor Qian closed his notebook, adding: "The United Front Department, Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, and Taiwan Affairs Office, in line with the City Committee and Municipal Government's strategy for investment attraction, have done a lot of work over the past six months. We can find overseas Chinese who are eager to contribute to the development of their hometown in more than forty countries and regions out of the hundreds globally.

We can't just reach out to Old Zhang when we need favors; we should start making contacts now, send some New Year greetings, how much could a few international calls cost? If we manage our relationships well, when it comes time to go abroad for investment attraction, we can ask for their help since we are unfamiliar abroad."

The city is really investing heavily in going abroad for investment attraction.

Han Yu realized that his focus might indeed become like a public security police, because for quite a long time to come, the work focus must shift to attracting investments, otherwise it would be unjustifiable given the city's expenditure of over ten million buying ships and people.

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