Empire of the Ring

Chapter 561: A Mega Project (1)

There was spring in Kazakhstan, too.

However, even though it was called spring, it came and disappeared quickly like a short sun shower.

Although spring did not last long, the royal territory’s field was usually extremely busy due to wheat planting and tree planting work.

This year, however, spring had gotten much more relaxed because the Kurdish immigrants joined the work.

Wheat planting did not need many hands since most of its work relied on farming machines, but other plantation work depended entirely on human labor. With thousands of Kurds helping, the process had been shortened by a lot.

Kurds were not only involved in plantation work but also in the construction of city-building and temporary residences, and their willingness to work was great even though they did not have much skills for such work.

It was because they would rather work than spending free time in the camp absent-mindedly, and not to mention, they earned money from working.

Even the school-age teenagers sometimes came to work, so they had to be sent back to a temporary school.

Whenever Youngho saw teenagers who wanted to work, he felt sorry. In Syria, where people had to rely only on relief supplies, many Kurds could not have any opportunity to touch cash, so any Kurds who moved to the royal territory were excited to make their own money.

Although there were only manual labor jobs at the moment, there would be more jobs available for Kurds since various factories would be in operation soon. It was because the administration of the royal territory was bringing in factories in developing countries to create more jobs for Kurdish immigrants.

The new factories include rubber, plastic, leather shoes and bags, clothes, and food and beverage factories.

Such labor-intensive factories were perfect for providing jobs for countless people without special skills.

Building many commodities factories was also essential to reduce Kazakhstan’s reliance on Chinese products.

Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan, relied mostly on Chinese products because even basic necessities were not supplied on their own.

To break the vicious cycle of bringing in cheap Chinese products, more daily necessities factories should be built.

So top officials of the royal territory gathered in the conference room for a heated debate over the construction of factories.

“Your Highness, the daily necessities factory we’re working on now has only 60,000 jobs. We need to create more or add more jobs to reach 100,000.”

“When we extend facilities, the factories would be so tightly built together, and it would be environmentally problematic. We should rather add another industrial complex. We have plenty of time to build a new industrial complex because it’s going to take a year and a half for all Kurds to come in.”

“I think we’ve got enough commodities factories. Now we have to pay attention to machinery and electronics as well. If there are too many commodities factories scattered all over the country, our factories could become surplus facilities later on.”

“Building a factory is important, but we need to find a way to solve the housing crisis. It will take forever for the Kurds to build their own houses if we insist on single houses only.”

Among many opinions and suggestions, Kim Chun came up with a real problem.

Jobs could be created as many as they wanted in the future, but Kurds would need houses to settle since they were living in the temporary camp.

“Your Highness, how about building apartments or townhouses?”

“You’re saying we should build apartment buildings when our land is this vast?”

“The Kurds don’t have big families, so it’s much more economical to move them into apartments than to single houses. Also, apartments could be built in a short period of time.”

Although apartments or townhouses were not desirable in the royal territory, they were the best options for Kurds since it was too much to ask them to build their own houses after distributing them land since they could not afford it yet.

“We don’t need to build high-rise apartments here. Let’s consider building townhouses. It’s going to be a large-scale complex. I don’t know if our construction department can handle it at the moment.”

“Then why don’t we ask an experienced Korean company to build it?”

“That’s a good idea, too. I will get some advice from Kim Joo-hyuk, the president of H Rotem of H Corporation.”

“It’s a multi-billion dollar project, and I don’t know if H Corporation alone can handle it.”

“H Corporation is not the only construction company in Korea. We’ll get many companies involved so that the construction period can be shortened. It’s also an opportunity to take Kazakhstan’s construction materials industry to the next level.”

If a large-scale construction project began, it could also be a breakthrough in the national construction materials industry. In addition, the domestic economy would be rattled by the mega-project.

***

Kim Joo-hyuk of H Corporation flew to the Arirang royal territory accompanied by working-level officials as soon as Youngho called him.

“No, weren’t you in Korea?”

“You’ve looked for me. Of course, I should come immediately.”

He seemed to be looking forward to it because Youngho explained about the mega project roughly over the phone.

When Youngho said he wanted to discuss a multi-unit dwelling project that could accommodate more than 300,000 people, Kim Joo-hyuk asked again if he heard the number right. It was not a size that H Corporation could solely handle; it was something that needed dozens of Korea’s leading construction companies’ involvement.

“It’s actually a mega project to house a million people, but first, we’re planning to build a multi-unit dwelling complex that will accommodate 300,000 people as soon as possible. Since it’s beyond our capacity, I wanted to discuss it with you.”

“As soon as I heard that, I doubted my ears. As you know, the new city of Bundang in Korea’s Gyeonggi-do province was planned to accommodate 400,000 people, and it took ten years for the city to complete the project. Your project is also not a short-term project, and it will cost an astronomical amount of money, so how are you planning to finance it?”

“We have enough money. There’s money in the royal family, and there are a lot of countries that want to loan Kurdish settlement funds.”

“I see. Then you don’t have to worry about your finances. The problem is that we need to prepare a huge amount of construction materials, and we’re worried that the construction materials industry of Kazakhstan is still in its infancy.”

“That’s why I’d like to have a partnership with Korean construction companies. I’d also like you to consider producing various construction materials here.”

“From the sanitary ware to the wallpaper aluminum sands, there’s a myriad of items, and you’re going to produce them all here?”

“We can’t rely on imports forever. We need some help from Korean companies.”

Kazakhstan had been importing most of the construction materials from abroad, except for heavy items such as cement and steel pipes.

Until now, there was not much demand in the country, so importing did not seem to be a burden, but now, combined with Kyrgyz and Kurds, the number of people was over 25 million. And if other Central Asian countries could be future target customers, there would be enough demand.

“How about building low-rise apartments rather than high-rise apartments? It will drastically reduce the construction period.”

“Why do you have to shorten the construction period when this project needs to be digested in the long term?”

“All the Kurds will come in two years. Imagine that a million people will stay in the temporary camp. We need to get them settled as soon as possible so that the Arirang state can be stabilized. We can’t afford to put off the housing issue.”

“I understand your concern. Even if it’s a falling shack, if you own it, you’d be willing to take care of it.”

“But I’m not a big fan of apartments. Is there another option?”

The director of the headquarters of H Construction, who followed Kim Joo-hyuk, then went on to elaborate.

“There is nothing like apartment buildings that can resolve a housing problem in a short period of time. Fortunately, the royal territory has plenty of lands, so you can plan a pleasant complex. If you change your existing city plan a little bit and build three-story villas, you can create an atmosphere of a townhouse complex. And if you mix it with single house units, I think you’ll get a good residential area view.”

“The former president has introduced a modular DFMA construction method to provide housing for the citizens. Please review that construction method too. It will dramatically reduce the construction period.”

DFMA housing method—Design for Manufacture and Assembly—was a construction method to apply factory-like conditions on construction buildings. This was introduced in large cities such as Almaty and Astana in an attempt to curb the terrible housing prices.

Because it was printed in large quantities from factories, it was able to drastically reduce costs and complete the construction period in 15 days for a single house.

“We already know that technique. Since 80 percent of the construction is built from the factory and they are assembled locally, it sounds like the most plausible method for the royal territory’s case. We’ll review the modular approach if you let us be in charge.”

“That’s good. I’m satisfied with that. Could H Corporation be a lead manager for this project?”

“Of course, Your Highness. Thank you for entrusting us with the responsibility. I’ll never let you down.”

Korean builders were highly trusted to complete the massive plant and civil construction projects they won overseas, albeit at a loss.

Being well aware of the trust and technical skills the Korean companies had accumulated while receiving losses from overseas, Youngho was going to entrust H Corporation with the mega project. This was his payback for H Corporation’s help from the days of the autonomous state. The connection made by the train project was now leading to a megaproject.

Instead of building houses and providing them to Kurds for free, Youngho intended to sell them and offer long-term installment financing. It would not be cherished if it was freely given.

However, considering the price and labor costs of the houses, Youngho could not help but sigh.

The cost would go down further if the factory was modularised and Kurds were sent to work, but added urban infrastructure such as water supply and roads would increase the cost. The cost of building 80,000 houses was as much as 4.3 billion dollars.

It had yet to be determined how much loans would be provided by other countries, so Youngho would have to pay it from the former President Nazarbayev’s slush funds for now.

Although he would get it back from Kurds in the long term, it would take at least ten years.

It was worrisome since he needed money to purchase weapons and build factories.

Since he owned gold mines, he had extra money, but if anything urgent happened in the meantime, it would be a disaster.

Although he had already predicted it when he decided to accept the Kurds, he felt a little bit sad when it was time for him to pay.

Considering the tangible and intangible benefits of Kurds, snobbery was creeping out of his heart when it came to money.