Chapter 3380

In Baozhou City, there were silicon mines of considerable scale. According to surveys by geological departments, over 100 million tons of silicon ore were buried in Yongyang County in the west of Baozhou, with ore purity reaching over 98%. It was an excellent raw material for preparing polycrystalline silicon. Calculated by current production, these ores could be mined for thousands of years.

Besides manufacturing photovoltaic cells, polycrystalline silicon is also an important raw material for manufacturing semiconductor products. Of course, to manufacture semiconductor products, further purification is needed—the 9s after the decimal point in 99.999% need to be increased by two or three more.

Although the current 99.999% seemed very close to this standard, the closer one got to this point, the more difficult it became. Increasing the number of 9s by two or three was not an easy task, and Hanhai Technology still needed to make further efforts.

The new energy industry also belonged to the high-tech industry, so it also enjoyed some preferential policies from the Yanbei provincial government, including tax exemptions and subsidies, etc. Coupled with Hanhai Technology's polycrystalline silicon manufacturing factory, this was a huge temptation for domestic emerging photovoltaic cell production enterprises.

Hanhai Technology had developed the physical method for preparing polycrystalline silicon several years ahead of time, which meant they occupied the first-mover advantage in this technology and could lay out their plans in advance. Moreover, they had huge profit margins because their production was larger, costs were lower, and purity was higher. Not only could they meet the needs of the domestic market, but they could also lower prices to seize foreign markets.

Now, European and American countries were also laying out plans for the new energy industry, and their photovoltaic cell manufacturing enterprises were emerging like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. However, the production of polycrystalline silicon had always been one of the bottlenecks restricting the development of the photovoltaic industry.

If Hanhai Technology could provide abundant polycrystalline silicon to these photovoltaic cell manufacturing enterprises at a price lower than the current market price, they would definitely be able to quickly seize the market.

Even if other polycrystalline silicon production enterprises in the market wanted to start a price war, they would have no way to compete with Hanhai Technology. If they lowered their prices to that level, it would be below their costs.

Their only way was to also research the physical method for preparing polycrystalline silicon, but they did not have Su Xinghui providing them with lines of thought. If they wanted to develop this technology, they didn't know how many detours they would have to take. If things didn't go well, they might spend one or two times more time than Hanhai Technology, and by that time, Hanhai Technology would have already occupied the entire market.

And during these few years, Hanhai Technology would invest a large amount of funds every year to research other technologies. Who knew what kind of advanced technologies they would develop next?

This was the principle of being one step faster and every step faster. With Su Xinghui constantly providing them with correct lines of thought, Hanhai Technology would always be in a leading position in these emerging technologies.

Su Xinghui was also very excited. After he provided the line of thought to Hou Wenchang, he hadn't expected that the Hanhai Technology Research Institute could develop this technology so quickly. This was truly the best news possible.

China had been weak for many years and had lagged behind European and American powers in industry for decades, with all kinds of technologies being very backward. But this era was a very good opportunity for China, because emerging technologies were emerging one after another. In these emerging technologies, the starting point for all countries was the same. China could completely achieve overtaking on a bend through breakthroughs in these emerging technologies.

Now, this physical method for preparing polycrystalline silicon was an emerging high-tech. Through Su Xinghui's efforts, China had achieved a surpassing of European and American countries in this technology. Su Xinghui believed that in the future, China would achieve surpassing of European and American countries in more technologies.

China's current economic development seemed to be in a very good situation, but the vast majority was still just low-end industry with very low profit margins. Many export commodities were even sold at a loss, just to exchange for foreign currency. That was why there was the saying that one had to export 100 million shirts to exchange for one airplane.

Such low-end industries, no matter how much they developed, would eventually fall into a bottleneck stage at a certain point. At that time, if industrial upgrading was not carried out, China would forever work for those developed European and American countries, becoming a provider of their cheap commodities.

For example, many mobile phone and computer factories in China now had seemingly high annual output values, but because they lacked independent technology, their profit margins were shockingly low.

For a 1,000-yuan mobile phone, after deducting costs and taxes, and paying patent fees to those European and American enterprises that owned the patents, Chinese production enterprises might only earn a few yuan in profit, while the lion's share was earned by those upstream enterprises and patent-holding enterprises. Didn't this mean they were just working for them?

Therefore, China needed to start laying out plans for industrial upgrading now. To carry out industrial upgrading, one naturally had to continuously achieve breakthroughs in technological research and obtain patent rights. Only in this way could one obtain considerable profits, and these profits could then be invested back into research and development. This was a virtuous cycle, and only in this way could China truly step into the ranks of developed countries.

Su Xinghui's vision had always been very long-term, and he was not confused by the seemingly bustling situation in Baozhou. His goal had always been to strive to overtake European and American developed countries on a bend. Now, his layout had already achieved relatively good results.

Within a week of Hanhai Technology announcing the development of the physical method for preparing polycrystalline silicon, several investors came to Baozhou to negotiate with the Baozhou municipal government on matters of investing in building photovoltaic cell manufacturing plants. The total production capacity of the photovoltaic cell manufacturing plants they were prepared to invest in reached the level of hundreds of MW, which already exceeded all of China's production capacity in this field over the past few years.

This was just a beginning. It was believed that more photovoltaic cell manufacturing enterprises would come to Baozhou to invest and build factories later, because once this technology from Hanhai Technology was developed, Baozhou would become the place with the largest supply of polycrystalline silicon in all of China. Not to mention that there were subsidies for high-tech here.

This news also made Provincial Party Committee Secretary Wu Jianbai and Governor Fang Zhonglin very excited. They naturally knew what this news meant. Such news could very well create another pillar industry with an annual output value of tens of billions in Baozhou.

More importantly, the country also planned to lay out plans in the new energy industry recently, providing support and subsidies for the new energy industry. Baozhou transmitting this news in a timely manner at this time was very likely to make the country support Baozhou as a key industrial base for the new energy industry. In that case, the prospects for this industry in Baozhou would be even more limitless.

Wu Jianbai immediately had a meeting with Fang Zhonglin, and then had his secretary make a phone call to summon Su Xinghui to Yanzhong City to inquire about the specific situation regarding this matter.

Su Xinghui then went to Yanzhong City with Hou Wenchang. During this period, because of the release of this new technology and the establishment of the polycrystalline silicon manufacturing enterprise, Hou Wenchang had been staying in Baozhou. Now that he had to report on this matter to the Provincial Party Committee Secretary and the Governor, Su Xinghui naturally had to bring him along.

Hou Wenchang naturally had no objections. Now, the relationship between their Hou family and Su Xinghui was extraordinary. Elder Hou Guangbi thought very highly of Su Xinghui, and he had told his descendants that they should fulfill any request Su Xinghui had.

And the relationship between Hou Wenhai, Hou Wenchang, and Su Xinghui was like that of biological brothers. The development of their Hou family was also inseparable from Su Xinghui. The guidance Su Xinghui gave them allowed them to avoid detours. In the ten years since they returned to the country, their assets had increased dozens of times.

Therefore, the relationship between the Hou family and Su Xinghui was now one of shared prosperity and shared loss. Hou Wenchang naturally would not refuse any request from Su Xinghui.