TITLE: Chapter 397
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I, along with Ellie and Taekgyu, visited Hyunjoo-noona's house. We had been busy since returning from the US, so we decided to get together for dinner after a long time.
“Welcome.”
Noona and Henry greeted us warmly.
Taekgyu presented a BMW he had bought at a department store.
“I brought a gift, Noona.”
It wasn’t a real car, but a toy car for kids. Still, it had a battery, a steering wheel, and an accelerator, so it actually moved when pressed.
Perhaps because of that, the price was unbelievably high for a child’s toy. The ones I rode as a kid, I think I just pushed with my feet.
Hyunjoo-noona said as she received the gift.
“Thanks, but it’ll be a while before Oh-Geon can ride it.”
“Don’t kids grow up fast? Just preparing in advance.”
I held up the wine.
“I brought wine too.”
Hyunjoo-noona looked at us strangely.
“It’s not even a special occasion today, why are you guys like this?”
“Just because.”
“Isn’t it an uncle’s love for his nephew?”
We went inside. Oh-Geon was playing with his nanny. He was truly growing bigger every day. He was crawling well now and even mimicking words.
Ellie lifted Oh-Geon up high with both hands.
“Peek-a-boo! Auntie’s here. Our Oh-Geon has grown so much.”
“Hehe!”
Babies tend to recognize pretty people at a glance.
Nestled in Ellie’s arms, Oh-Geon smiled brightly. However, when Taekgyu held him next, he suddenly started crying loudly.
“Waaaaah!”
“Huh! It’s uncle, uncle. I didn’t do anything, Noona.”
In a house with a baby, the baby naturally becomes the center of attention. While everyone was playing with Oh-Geon, I spoke with Henry separately.
“How’s married life?”
“Shall I be honest?”
“Yes.”
No matter how much they loved each other before marriage, reality must be tough, right?
Henry smiled broadly and said.
“I wonder if it’s okay to be this happy.”
“Really?”
That’s a bit different from what other people say.
“Noona’s personality can’t be easy.”
“What’s wrong with Hyunjoo’s personality? She’s sharp at work, but at home, she’s more affectionate than anyone.”
It felt natural for him to call her by her Korean name now, not her English one. He seemed to love her dearly.
Seeing Henry so happy, I somehow felt a desire to get married too.
We had dinner together at home.
Since it would become known once the work started anyway, I planned to tell Noona beforehand and ask for her advice.
During the meal, I was looking for the right time to bring it up, but Noona spoke to Taekgyu first.
“What do you have to say?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been looking shifty since earlier. You have something to say, don’t you?”
Taekgyu quickly passed the buck to me.
“Jinhoo will explain that.”
I brought out the story I had prepared.
“Actually…”
I revealed the plan for Saemangeum development, and Hyunjoo-noona and Henry listened to us seriously.
Hyunjoo-noona looked lost in thought for a long time.
Taekgyu, beside her, nodded his head unnecessarily.
“I know, Noona. It must be a bit bewildering, suddenly saying you’ll build a new city.”
But an unexpected answer came back.
“No. It’s a sufficiently plausible story. I know a lot about Saemangeum development too. When Golden Gate was considering entering Korea, we received a proposal to relocate to the Saemangeum international cooperation site once it was developed. They offered land and various tax benefits.”
Henry also added a word.
“They’ve held many investment attraction meetings targeting foreign companies. So, any company with ties to Korea would know something about Saemangeum.”
Hearing their stories, it seemed that because it was such a large reclamation project, it was quite famous internationally.
Hyunjoo-noona looked at me and asked.
“Why did you suddenly become interested in that place?”
It was because I saw the vision… but I couldn't say that directly.
“I just saw the Silicon Valley restoration site and a thought suddenly came to me. What if I tried to build a city like that?”
“That’s right, Noona. Seoul is too crowded, isn’t it?”
Hyunjoo-noona nodded.
“In any country, population tends to concentrate in big cities. But even compared to other countries, Seoul and the metropolitan area are at a critical level.”
The reason is that all infrastructure, including politics, industry, finance, and education, is concentrated in the metropolitan area.
Setting aside the US and China, which have vast territories, even populous countries have their major cities divided into two or three. But in Korea, 40 percent of the population is concentrated in the metropolitan area alone.
“Currently, the metropolitan area is saturated. Simple manufacturing might be different, but it’s hard for advanced manufacturing to move to regional areas. Just as synergy occurs when people meet, it’s the same for companies. That’s why financial firms and IT companies try to gather in one place. If a city capable of replacing Seoul were created, companies would willingly go there.”
Taekgyu said.
“But when I went there, it was just an empty plain.”
Hyunjoo-noona drank her coffee.
“It might be hard to believe now, but Pudong used to be like that too.”
Shanghai is divided into Pudong and Puxi by the Huangpu River. Unlike Puxi, where the city had formed early on, Pudong was an empty plain with nothing but rice paddies.
You could say it was like the old Gangbuk and Gangnam. It’s unimaginable now, but Gangnam was originally a rural village with fields. However, from the 1960s, the government intensively developed Gangnam for urban expansion, and now it has become the neighborhood with the most expensive housing prices in the country.
Henry explained.
“The Chinese government planned to make Pudong the financial center of China. The reason was that they felt the limits of manufacturing-centered growth.”
I nodded.
“As manufacturing grows, the need for financing increases.”
Industry and finance are the two wings of an economy. Just as one cannot fly with only one wing, as the scale of industry grows, finance must support it.
“But no one wanted to move to Pudong, which was an empty plain. China forced local governments to construct one building each and forcibly relocated state-owned enterprises.”
Pudong, which was no different from a rural area, has now been reborn as a world-class financial center lined with skyscrapers.
Currently, over 500 financial institutions are located in Pudong, more than 15,000 foreign companies have entered, and the foreign population alone exceeds 150,000. All of this happened in less than 30 years.
Local governments and companies that were forced to construct buildings and relocate according to central government policy earned enormous profits.
Hyunjoo-noona said.
“Saemangeum will be much easier to develop than Gangnam or Pudong. Construction technology has advanced since then. Above all, the fact that there is no private land, saving money and time on land acquisition, is a huge advantage. However, just as PEF investments need an anchor LP, in this case, an anchor company will be needed.”
A Limited Partner who plays the role of dropping the investment anchor, much like a ship drops its anchor, is called an Anchor LP.
Just as people are reluctant to invest in things they don’t know well, everyone would hesitate if told to construct buildings on empty land.
Therefore, someone has to take the plunge and build a building first. Then, seeing that, other people will start constructing buildings next to it, and that’s how a city is formed.
It's not without risk.
What if you build a building, and no one builds next to it? Then you’ll suffer a huge financial loss.
“Everything is difficult at the beginning. Once the floodgates open, water will pour in. Fortunately, you guys have the influence and capital to execute it.”
“Will it be okay to do it?”
Hyunjoo-noona looked at us and said.
“What are you asking? Didn’t you already decide to do it before you even brought it up?”
I looked sheepish.
“You knew.”
Hyunjoo-noona chuckled.
“What’s so surprising? It’s not like this is the first or second time.”
Taekgyu quickly gave two thumbs up.
“Oh! That’s our Noona!”
“Be quiet.”
***
No matter how much the vision shows the future, finding a way to realize it is my job.
I kept pondering that method.
I don't necessarily need to create the Saemangeum new city plan myself. Because numerous experts have already completed it over several administrations.
They’ve already divided the land into industrial research, international cooperation, tourism and leisure, etc., and infrastructure construction plans for ports, an international airport, east-west arterial roads, north-south arterial roads, the Saemangeum-Pohang expressway, high-speed rail extension, etc., are all in place.
Taekgyu was impressed.
“Oh! As expected, the government has a plan for everything.”
I nodded.
“Yes. It was indeed a very timely plan.”
However, just as they say that if you make a plan, things go even less according to plan, somehow nothing has proceeded according to plan.
If things had gone according to plan, a world-class advanced city would have been built by now. But as I confirmed with my own eyes, it's currently just a dusty plain.
Infrastructure construction is sluggish, and some areas haven't even properly completed landfill preparation.
“Why didn’t it go according to plan?”
“Money is a problem, and the government is a problem. There’s a saying: If the federal government managed the Sahara Desert, they’d run out of sand in five years.”
It’s a sarcastic remark about how inefficient government organizations can be.
“Who said that?”
“Professor Milton Friedman.”
An American economist who received the Nobel Prize in Economics. A leading figure of the Chicago School, he advocated for neoliberalism, which can be considered mainstream economics today, and argued that the role of government should be minimal.
I don’t 100 percent agree with that, but the government doesn’t necessarily function efficiently.
The Saemangeum land, a staggering 3 million square kilometers, is 100 percent government-owned. If the government continues to lead the development project, it's unknown how many more decades it will take.
Since I saw the vision, I have to do it, but there’s no need to do unprofitable work. I’m an investor, not a philanthropist.
Therefore, to proceed with development properly and make a profit, it’s necessary to take over the development initiative from the government.
I searched for ‘new city’ on the internet.
The first thing that came up was an article about the 3rd generation new cities currently being promoted by the government. The plan is to create five mini new cities in the metropolitan area close to Seoul to supply about 200,000 housing units. The purpose is to stabilize Seoul's housing prices.
However, after the plan was announced, residents in surrounding areas staged protests, fearing a decline in housing prices and traffic congestion. Land acquisition hasn't even begun yet, so it's unknown how many years it will take until actual apartments are supplied.
“What? They’re building new cities just fine. Then why didn’t Saemangeum work out?”
“That’s not the metropolitan area. And the land is vast.”
New city development requires strong government will.
A city is not built overnight. Pudong was able to become a world-class city because of the Chinese government's continuous and consistent development policy.
However, in Korea, even though every new administration verbally proclaimed they would develop Saemangeum, it was always pushed back in priority.
The reason is that while a lot of money is spent, results don't appear immediately.
I skimmed the article and muttered.
“I think I’ve thought of a good way.”
***
OTK Company CEO Kang Jinhoo requested a meeting with the Prime Minister.
People found this strange. Unlike his closeness with the American political circle, Kang Jinhoo had kept his distance from the Korean political circle as much as possible. Therefore, it was rare for him to ask to meet a Korean politician first.
Everyone wondered about the reason, and the political world was abuzz.
Prime Minister Ryu Jeonghoon stated his position.
“The government is always willing to meet with business leaders for economic development and investment promotion. As CEO Kang Jinhoo has requested a meeting first, I will gladly meet him and listen to what he has to say.”
As expected, the opposition party found fault and attacked.
Representative Yeon Nakyeong said.
“When the president met business leaders in the previous administration, they criticized it as soliciting improper favors and bribery. Does it make any sense for the Prime Minister of a nation to have a private meeting with a business leader? Where else would you find such a hypocritical government? Our citizens are watching.”
As expected, public reaction was not very good.
- No, didn't you say last time that anti-corporate sentiment hinders investment, and that the President and Prime Minister should directly meet business leaders to encourage investment?
- One minute they say to take care of the economy and people's livelihoods first.
- To take care of the economy, shouldn’t they meet Kang Jinhoo first?
- His Excellency got into trouble for secretly meeting and asking for kickbacks. There's no problem with meeting officially. How many times has Kang Jinhoo had private meetings with President Ronald?
- If he doesn’t meet business leaders, they complain. If he meets them, they complain~
- LOL. Yeon-jeok-yeon (Yeon’s enemy is Yeon). Yeon-kazaki’s words can be refuted by Yeon-kazaki’s own words.
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