50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 424 Good places should be claimed first
Subsequently, the city hall signed a letter of intent with Sun Zhiwei for the development of Anatahan Island, in which Sun Zhiwei explained his requirements.

The city hall needs to provide a development plan and overall budget within three months.

The timeframe is a bit tight because surveying equipment needs to be transported to survey the entire island. It covers an area of ​​over 30 square kilometers, mostly mountainous and rainforest, which will take a considerable amount of time.

Sun Zhiwei needs to build a 2000-ton permanent pier, a small single-runway airport, a megawatt-level wind turbine, a ring road around the island, and a seawater desalination plant on the island.

The city hall accepted his request in its entirety. After all, they didn't have to spend any money; investment would boost the economy and create jobs, so they wouldn't lose out no matter what.

The survey alone will cost $100 million, the design will cost $250 million, and the construction drawings will cost another $200 million.

In other words, the idea of ​​building this island would cost more than $500 million just by discussing it on paper, without doing anything yet.

Thinking about the subsequent construction costs, Sun Zhiwei, who had just felt rich a few days ago, started to feel short of money again.

Before the project even started, he estimated the costs himself.

Both docks and highways are relatively easy to handle, with no technical difficulties and transparent pricing.

A 2000-ton civilian dock costs around $200 million, as it involves little to no large equipment and is essentially just infrastructure.

The 30-kilometer-long Class III standard ring road around the island costs $50 per kilometer, for a total price of around $1500 million.

However, a small airport can be a bit expensive.

It requires a standard 1200-meter Class 2 runway, a full set of navigation equipment, weather radar, visual navigation equipment, ground support equipment, terminal building, control tower, hangar, fuel depot and other buildings and equipment.

The construction cost alone is around $2000 million, and the operating and maintenance costs after completion are also staggering.

A $20 Doppler module for weather radar needs to be replaced every 18 months.
The cost of periodic calibration of the ILS instrument landing system localizer antenna array is US$10 per calibration.
Airports need to hire professional staff to operate, and the annual salaries of professionals such as pilots, air traffic controllers, navigation personnel, ground staff, and security personnel are generally very high.

There are also airspace management fees, coordination of military and civilian airspace, application for flight permits, route mileage fees, etc., the hidden costs start at millions of dollars every year.
A rough calculation shows that the annual operating cost of a small airport is over $300 million.

As for wind power plants and seawater desalination plants, these are considered high-tech projects in this era, and he doesn't know their specific costs yet.

If calculated based on costs decades from now, the construction cost of a 1-megawatt wind power plant would be around $200 million.
The construction cost of a seawater desalination plant with a daily output of 1,000 tons is around US$1.5 million.

When Sun Zhiwei added up the total costs, he found that just building these five infrastructure projects would require $46 million.

Of course, this is also the bulk of the island's development expenditure; other buildings and structures are not worth much money. He estimates that it will only take $5000 million to complete the construction.

However, the subsequent maintenance costs will still amount to about $500 million per year, and this is an ongoing expense.

It's really hard to say whether this place will be able to recoup its costs once it's completed.

Just thinking about this, it's very likely that this will be the key to our breakthrough of the second island chain in the future, so this little expense is nothing.

There's no money in the country right now, so we have to abandon the construction, but since he has money in his hands, he'll naturally cover the costs first.

In places like this, it's best to build as early as possible; securing the land is the most important thing.

If this drags on, what if Old M changes his mind in the future and wants to take back ownership of the island?

When it comes to lawsuits, the power dynamics between a deserted island and a modern tourist island will be completely different.

Three days later, the surveyors arrived in Saipan, and Sun Zhiwei paid the first installment of 100 million yuan. He then called Chen Damin in Los Angeles, asking him to help introduce a lawyer to oversee the entire island project.

By the time all these things were done, it was already February 5th. It was still the coldest time of year in Siberia. He planned to head north, but before that, he needed to return to the capital to make preparations.

There are always flights from Saipan to Tokyo. On the afternoon of the 5th, Sun Zhiwei took a flight to Tokyo. The next morning, he changed his identity at Tokyo Airport and transferred to a flight to Beijing.

Ten months later, he returned to the capital city and felt a surge of warmth and familiarity.

This time, Sun Zhiwei landed during the day, and unlike last time, he didn't ride his bike home in the dead of winter. Instead, he called a taxi directly from the airport.

At that time, taxi companies were all state-owned enterprises, taxis had special licenses, and drivers were all employees of state-owned enterprises.

They wear uniforms and mostly serve foreign guests.

Of course, Chinese people can ride in the car, but the driver only accepts foreign exchange certificates.

After waiting for a short while at the airport entrance, a Toyota Crown pulled up in front of him, and Sun Zhiwei opened the door and got in.

Seeing that he didn't look like a foreigner, the driver tentatively asked in English, "Sir, where are you going?"

Now that they were at home, Sun Zhiwei had no interest in pretending to be a foreigner any longer and replied in fluent Beijing dialect:

"Comrade, please go to the Foreign Affairs Building on Chaoyangmen Inner Street."

"Oh, it's one of us. Comrade, I only accept foreign exchange certificates here. Do you have any?"

Upon hearing his Beijing accent, the driver didn't start the car but instead turned to ask him a question.

At this time, many young people would try to scam taxi drivers in order to find a girlfriend. They would pretend to be foreigners and take a taxi, but only pay the domestic fare when they got out.

As a result, for a period of time, many drivers were criticized by their superiors.

Taxis are one of the important channels for the domestic collection of foreign exchange certificates. If they continue to do this, how will they complete their tasks?

As a result, from then on, every driver became very wary of Chinese passengers, especially young people, and insisted on checking their foreign exchange certificates.

The young men in Beijing who were dating outsmarted taxi drivers and later invented a new way to hitchhike.

They would carry a $1 bill or a foreign exchange certificate with them, and when taking a bus or train, they would show a corner of the bill to get away with it.

When they got off the bus, they still only paid the ten-dollar bill, because they could keep their foreign exchange certificate or one-dollar bill for later use.

Sun Zhiwei knew about this, so he simply took out a few $10 bills and showed them to the driver.

"Can I pay in US dollars directly?"

Seeing the real money, the driver was relieved and a smile appeared on his face: "Alright, US dollars are fine too. Please sit tight, comrade, we'll be off right away."

Soon, the car started, and the driver smoothly took him off, heading straight for the diplomatic building.

(End of this chapter)