161 The Landlord King of New Tuvalu

Led by Conrad and Director Liu of China Construction Engineering, Li Daniu toured the progress of all engineering projects in New Tuvalu.

Just as Conrad had said, the progress of these projects completely exceeded Li Daniu's expectations.

According to Director Liu of China Construction Engineering, the complete construction of the New Tuvalu International Airport was expected to take two years. Moreover, to enable the airport to start operations as early as possible, they adopted a phased construction approach.

In addition to two runways, the first phase included the first-phase terminal and other facilities. Based on the current construction pace, the first-phase project of the New Tuvalu Airport would be open in half a year, with a daily passenger handling capacity reaching 3,000 trips.

Director Liu also mentioned that, up to now, the biggest factor affecting the construction progress was the shortage of raw materials. Although the few makeshift docks that had already been completed were operating twenty-four hours a day without stopping, they still could not keep up with the massive demand for raw materials required by New Tuvalu's engineering construction.

Therefore, to make subsequent construction smoother, their construction focus was currently placed on the docks and supporting road construction.

This result was extremely satisfying to Li Daniu.

In his past life, he had seen the construction time of many famous projects in China, such as the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, which had a daily passenger flow of 80,000 and took as long as four years to build.

Even though the passenger flow standard of Li Daniu's New Tuvalu International Airport would certainly be lower than that of the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, the complexity of its interior decoration would definitely be higher than that of Guangzhou Baiyun.

After researching famous airports around the world, Li Daniu positioned his airport as one where people would not feel bored even if they stayed inside for 24 hours, much like the Singapore Changi Airport.

Hotels, commercial districts, indoor gardens, food streets, and even cinemas—although New Tuvalu had plenty of tourism resources, Li Daniu's goal was for every new building in New Tuvalu to become a world-renowned scenic spot.

Therefore, for such a massive amount of engineering work, China Construction Engineering's promise to complete it within two years truly shocked him.

Had Conrad not been extremely strict about quality requirements and very rigorous with testing methods, Li Daniu would have had every reason to believe that they were preparing to build a shoddy project for him.

Regarding why the construction progress was so fast, Director Liu also provided some explanations from a side perspective. The general meaning was that Li Daniu's funding had always been very abundant, allowing them to operate at full throttle or even maintain an overloaded working state during construction. Another reason was that Li Daniu did not have so many bureaucratic red tape and interference.

Unlike the relatively complex domestic environment, here, as long as the plan was approved, work could begin without any hesitation, completely eliminating the need to worry about one leader coming over to give instructions today and another leader coming over to give instructions tomorrow.

Any instruction meant that much of the previous preparatory work would become useless, and might even require rework.

Most importantly, the interest relationship in New Tuvalu was very clear: the client was Li Daniu, and the contractor was China Construction Engineering. There were no other people between them who could point fingers and try to secure personal gains.

Of course, regarding this point, Li Daniu had to thank the Vice Premier who received him during his last trip to China.

Otherwise, such a huge cake and the interest interactions among domestic material suppliers and even construction teams would definitely have affected New Tuvalu's construction progress.

For the time being, there was no need to worry about the airport and docks. After confirming that China Construction Engineering, represented by Director Liu, possessed surplus construction capacity, Li Daniu decided to start the construction of new projects.

The top priority was the residential area.

New Tuvalu had many deep-water bays, so there were plenty of options for dock locations. Once the dock locations were determined, the location of the airport was then decided.

The geographical requirements for an airport were extremely high: flat, open, and free of surrounding mountains. Combined with the distance to the docks to facilitate the transportation of construction raw materials, the distance between the two was not too far.

The location planned for the residential area formed an equilateral triangle with the airport and the docks. This ensured convenient transportation while maintaining a sufficient distance so that the residential area would not suffer from noise pollution from the airport and docks.

Of course, for someone with as high standards as Li Daniu, the residential area naturally had to feature both mountains and water.

New Tuvalu was not short of mountains and forests. As for water, it was even simpler, because as an island nation, New Tuvalu was surrounded by the sea on all sides.

With mountains at the back and the sea in front, such a living environment could be said to have reached the ultimate pinnacle of residential living.

"So, what about the architectural standards?" Although Conrad had selected almost the most suitable and best location according to Li Daniu's requirements, he was not qualified to determine the construction standards for the residences.

Burns said, "If we are building residential apartment blocks, I suggest not building them too tall. Because the Auckland Islands where New Tuvalu is located are extinct volcanoes, earthquakes are still possible. If built too tall, safety issues will be difficult to resolve."

As a prime minister, while he frequently had to flatter his king, when it came to critical issues, he still needed to state his position in advance and analyze the pros and cons. Otherwise, there were simply too many people in this world who only knew how to flatter.

Moreover, what Burns said was indeed a fact. The Auckland Islands were formed by submarine volcanic eruptions, and one could imagine how severe the volcanic eruption must have been at that time to form such huge islands. Although a volcanic eruption was impossible nowadays, earthquakes were very likely to occur.

"What you said makes a lot of sense." Li Daniu did not take offense at what Burns said; he still had that much breadth of mind.

"However, I do not intend to build residential apartment blocks. I want to build villa complexes. My goal is for every person in Tuvalu to live in a villa, rather than squeezing into small two-bedroom apartments of seventy or eighty square meters."

"If it's villa complexes, as long as construction quality is guaranteed, there is indeed no need to worry too much about earthquakes." Conrad completely disregarded what Li Daniu's ultimate goal was; he was just an employee getting paid. As for whether Li Daniu had enough money to support the construction, what did that have to do with him?

"Your Majesty, in that case, the investment is simply too huge." Burns did not directly object, not only because Li Daniu was the king, but also because he knew Li Daniu was very wealthy right now.

However, the construction cost of residential apartment blocks and villa complexes was completely different. Although New Tuvalu did not yet have differences in land prices, to build houses, foundations definitely had to be laid first.

What was the footprint of a residential apartment block? And if an apartment block averaged 300 households, what would be the total footprint of those 300 individual villas?

New Tuvalu was currently a wasteland, and wanting to build residences definitely meant reclaiming wasteland first. If the footprint was large, the reclamation cost would inevitably rise infinitely. Moreover, once the residential area expanded in area, investments in supporting facilities such as roads and gardens would also increase exponentially.

Therefore, while the construction cost per square meter of high-rise buildings might be higher than that of villas, after calculating the total account, it was not cost-effective for New Tuvalu.

"It doesn't matter, these houses belong to my property anyway." Li Daniu also knew that the investment would increase by doing this, but so what? Once these houses were built, they would all belong to him.

Li Daniu was not a philanthropist; he could not possibly spend so much money to gift every single household of his citizens a villa. After these villas were built, the ownership would belong entirely to Li Daniu.

I can let you live for free, but you must make sufficient contributions to prove your worthiness to live in this villa. Otherwise, if you still want to live here, fine, pay the rent.

When New Tuvalu truly developed and prospered, if someone really wanted to become a parasite, then I am sorry, even if I gave you $3,000 or more in welfare every month, you still wouldn't be able to survive in New Tuvalu.

The level of income is not just about how much money you receive in hand, but also depends on the overall living standard of the city where you reside.

In China, receiving the same monthly salary of 5,000 yuan while living in a third- or fourth-tier small city makes you a white-collar worker, but what if you live in the capital? How many years would it take you to afford your own home?

It takes a whole year of eating and drinking nothing just to buy one square meter; even if you want to buy a small two-bedroom apartment of 70 square meters, how many years would that take?

This was the real reason why Li Daniu dared to offer such massive welfare.