Chapter 353

When he was about to leave, Secretary Li Mingzhou hinted that there would be a personnel adjustment in July or August, allowing Lu Fan to communicate any ideas in advance.

Returning to Ganshui, Lu Fan immediately threw himself into investment promotion work, personally taking the lead, convening the two offices, the Economic Development Bureau, the Industry and Commerce Bureau and other units, referring to Chang'an City's investment promotion measures and combining them with the preferential policies of coastal areas, he drafted the 'Ganshui County Investment Promotion New Policies'.

In mid-March, Ganshui County officially released the 'Golden Ten Articles' investment promotion new policy, taking petroleum equipment manufacturing, tourism, characteristic agriculture, Ganshui bean industry, breeding industry, pure water industry, and high-tech industries—seven major sectors—as breakthrough points, striving to stir up a new wave of investment promotion.

The Golden Ten Articles are worth their weight in gold; in Yingjiang City and even Qinchuan Province they are a bold attempt. According to County Chief Yuan Weiwei, they seize the golden development opportunity, a policy as valuable as gold. Lu Fan secretly sighed, gradually gaining the courage of Wang Hongtao!

The Golden Ten Articles embody the traits of being clearest, simplest, best, most distinctive, and easiest; they use plain language, each article employing a keyword-plus-explanation format, getting straight to the point, every word a gem, concise yet comprehensive, directly addressing the theme.

From project settlement and construction to ongoing development, in areas such as finance and taxation, talent, growth, innovation, market, investment and financing, venue, and financial matching, they provide enterprises with full-life-cycle, all-around support, forming a competitive policy combination.

Making investment promotion policies public and transparent, they built an open, fair, and just honest government. At the same time, they clearly stipulated heavy rewards for advanced collectives and individuals in investment promotion.

The county government printed the Golden Ten Articles into booklets, issuing one copy to each cadre in Ganshui; the masses vied to pass them around, and a nationwide investment promotion drive unfolded in grand style.

On March 20, after the Municipal Party Committee's personnel adjustments were finalized, Guo Tongyu, head of Ganshui County's Organization Department, was adjusted to become executive vice county chief, while Chen Muxue, deputy county chief of Ningyang County, was adjusted to become head of Ganshui County's Organization Department.

The next day, Chen Yang, vice president of Qinchuan Petroleum, led a team to inspect Ganshui County, with County Party Secretary Lu Fan accompanying him throughout.

In private, Lu Fan expressed thanks to Chen Yang regarding his cousin's work.

Chen Yang laughed and said: 'We're family, no need for separate talk; from now on, Muxue still needs Secretary Lu to cultivate her further!'

With Chen Muxue serving as a bridge and link, Chen Zong's inspection efficiency was extremely high; in just two days he settled on investment intentions for three projects—centrifugal cotton, special housing, and oil pump reducers—signed a 1.6‑billion‑yuan cooperation agreement with Ganshui, and directly moved into the site‑selection stage.

On March 22, the second phase of the silicon carbide project with a total investment of 5 billion yuan officially commenced; County Party Secretary Lu Fan attended the groundbreaking ceremony, expressing gratitude to Longteng Technology for its strong support of Ganshui's economic development, and promised that Ganshui would provide all‑round guarantees for project construction and support the enterprise to reach production and effectiveness as soon as possible.

On March 25, Yang Shaokai, director of the Municipal Development and Reform Commission, brought the head of the Municipal Energy Group to inspect Ganshui County, with County Party Secretary Lu Fan accompanying him.

Everyone understood implicitly; this was a project personally settled by Secretary Li Mingzhou, so they naturally got along well, and a 4‑billion‑yuan investment landed in Ganshui County.

Although the leadership had exchanged greetings, Lu Fan would by no means neglect etiquette.

That evening, Lu Fan grandly received Director Yang Shaokai and his entourage at the Ganshui Grand Hotel, accompanied by County Chief Yuan Weiwei, Deputy Secretary Zhang Qianyuan, and Executive Vice County Chief Guo Tongyu.

Director Yang Shaokai could drink a lot, but Ganshui is Lu Fan's turf—how could he let him walk out of the private room standing?

After a bout of drinking, Yang Shaokai's entire group was completely knocked down; Lu Fan sincerely praised, saying that Ganshui people are absolutely the top drinkers in the city, and likely unmatched across the province—people who can handle two jin of liquor are everywhere, and several bureau chiefs are born wine‑tolerant heroes.

Not long after, Yang Shaokai returned to Ganshui County, bringing two projects—a thermal cubic air source heat pump and scrap‑car dismantling—with an investment of 650 million yuan.

However, this time Municipal Party Secretary Li Mingzhou personally accompanied him; these are investments from two private enterprises, which he helped Ganshui secure through personal connections.

By the end of March, Ganshui had secured seven major projects, with a total investment of 11.25 billion yuan, achieving a red‑start for 2018 that shocked the entire city.

On April 1, a heavyweight visitor arrived—brother‑in‑law Li Siwei leading an inspection team of over thirty people to Ganshui County, conducting a comprehensive inspection of Ganshui's investment environment, geographical conditions, and resource advantages.

It was said that this inspection team planned to invest over a hundred billion in Ganshui, causing a sensation throughout the county.

In Lu Fan's office, Li Siwei rummaged through boxes and cabinets looking for tea; finally holding Lu Fan's prized collection, he wore a look of disdain and said: 'Brother‑in‑law, you may be the county party secretary, but getting some good tea shouldn't be hard, right?'

'Ah, I can't compare with you—where would I get the money for that stuff!'

'I don't believe nobody would send it!'

'There is—someone in this office gives gifts worth hundreds of thousands, of everything!'

'All right, you really can't accept it! Tell me what you want, and I'll get it for you.'

Lu Fan laughed: 'If you truly want to help me improve my life, then invest! Ganshui has set investment‑promotion preferential policies this year; as long as I fulfill the task, I can be rewarded with 2 million yuan—a legitimate income. With that money I can give your sister her bride‑price!'

Li Siwei laughed until he doubled over, saying: 'You're making me laugh to death! If that really works, I'll arrange a project for you each year and openly give you the bonus!'

After chatting a while, they got to the point; Li Siwei said: 'Brother‑in‑law, I've secured all the wind‑power quotas for Ganshui—eight townships will have photovoltaic sites laid out, with total investment exceeding 11 billion.'

Lu Fan replied: 'You can have all the wind‑power quotas, but manufacturing projects must be genuinely implemented, with high quality and sustainable development, bringing industrial output, tax revenue, and employment to Ganshui.'

'Don't worry, nobody can fool you! This year our group really has some projects to invest in; if I can help you, why not? With achievements you'll become a higher official, and I won't suffer—so put your mind at ease; helping you is helping myself. This time the team I brought are all professionals; they'll tell me what projects suit Ganshui. But first let me give you the lowdown: the intelligent manufacturing base for wind‑power components, tire and automobile‑parts production, electrochemical energy storage, and the 5 GW high‑efficiency N‑type battery plus 2 GW high‑efficiency module project can be considered for landing in Ganshui, together amounting to about 6.4 billion yuan of investment!'

The more Lu Fan listened, the more excited he became, but he suppressed his excitement and said in a deep voice: 'Siwei, think again about ways to expand the investment; ideally we could scrape together 10 billion!'

Li Siwei was speechless: 'Okay, brother‑in‑law, do you think my money is blown in by the wind? Adding the wind‑power investment, we're looking at nearly 18 billion yuan to pour in! How long will it take me to earn it back? To be frank, if I got the same wind‑power quotas elsewhere, I'd at most throw in a few hundred million, buy a few plots of land, and put up some showy projects just for show. Once I secured the wind‑power project, I'd immediately 'run away', even leaving the land and factories for free to the locality—what would that be worth? Would they dare say two things? My investment in Ganshui is real gold and silver poured in; people need to have enough conscience! Speaking of thick‑skinnedness, I still can't compare with you officials!'

Lu Fan laughed: 'Being an official for one term and benefiting one locality— for me, the most fundamental and direct manifestation is letting the people of Ganshui live well, which is more important than anything else!'

'Brother‑in‑law, I understand, so I must support you without hesitation—we are family after all!'

On April 5, in the Ganshui County Party Committee meeting room, Tianhui Energy and the Ganshui County government signed a framework agreement for investment promotion worth 18.5 billion yuan; this move marks that the two sides will join hands to cooperate, helping Ganshui County achieve industrial upgrading and transformational development, jointly promoting Ganshui's economic growth. Vice Mayor Zhang Shibin personally attended the scene, witnessing this historic feat of Ganshui.

After the signing ceremony ended, both sides conducted in‑depth discussions on project implementation.

Lu Fan delegated these matters to the county government, and he found that County Chief Yuan Weiwei is truly adept at handling concrete work.

Soon, this county chief gave Lu Fan a big surprise: on April 10, the Longteng Technology inspection team came to Ganshui, planning to build an advanced semiconductor die‑packaging project with investment over 2 billion yuan; Lu Fan naturally had to accompany them throughout.

Yuan Weiwei privately told Lu Fan that the project was basically settled, and it was he who 'begged shamelessly' to ask Wang Hongwei for it.

Lu Fan greatly praised Yuan Weiwei's move and urged him to keep up the style, press on, and strive to get a share of Chang'an's trillion‑yuan pharmaceutical industry project, claiming that if Secretary Hongtao lets even a little slip through his fingers, it would be enough for Ganshui to 'eat'; knowing that Nan Gou Town and Shi Qiao Town in Ganshui are fully developing the medicinal‑material industry, we must make Ganshui the cultivation base of the trillion‑yuan pharmaceutical industry park.

Hearing this, Yuan Weiwei's eyes lit up, and he said he would personally go to Chang'an to find Secretary Hongtao and spare no effort to bring this about.

After three days of inspection, the advanced semiconductor die‑packaging project landed in Ganshui; Chen Xu and Yuan Weiwei respectively represented Longteng and Ganshui County in signing the cooperation framework agreement.

After the signing ceremony ended, Chen Xu deliberately visited County Party Secretary Lu Fan; in the conversation he intentionally or unintentionally brought up Lu Yao.

Lu Fan knew Chen Xu's thoughts, but there was nothing he could do about it, and it was not appropriate to say anything.

In mid‑April, various economic indicators were reported to the city; according to preliminary figures from the Statistics Bureau and the Economic Development Bureau, Ganshui's investment‑promotion amount reached 31.85 billion yuan, ranking first in the city and driving 28 percentage points of the city's total; Ganshui's first‑quarter fixed‑asset investment reached 2.9 billion yuan, also first in the city; moreover, indicators such as urban and rural residents' incomes— Ganshui topped them all, realizing the grand goal of a 'red‑start'.

In late April, following the instructions of County Party Secretary Lu Fan, the Ganshui County Party Committee Organization Department and the Discipline Inspection Committee launched inspection procedures for the four cadres An Song, Fan Yuan Ye, Jiang Feng, and Chen Xiao, preparing to promote them to deputy section‑chief level.

At the same time, the four participated in the Municipal Discipline Inspection Committee's selection examination and were all successfully admitted.