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2006 Magnificent Ten

"Each year the 2006 Magnificent Ten of the Chinese Economy awards focuses on a key concept and recognizes economic leaders whose lives epitomize the concept. This year, the word was “responsibility.”

No one stood out more as an exemplar in this regard in 2006 than Li Ka-shing, 79, the billionaire chairman of Cheung Kong Holdings and Hutchison Whampoa Limited of Hong Kong and founder of the Li Ka-shing Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations.

Li tops among those cited during the annual China Central Television (CCTV) Economy 30 Minutes Programme on January 20.

He addressed the issue of responsibility in a statement: “As entrepreneurs we should play a role in promoting public good while competing for wealth. In the final analysis, wealth is meaningful only when it is used for the public good.”

As a businessman with personal assets valued HK150 billion (US$19.23, billion), according to Forbes Magazine estimates, Li’s reach is worldwide. Through his Panama Ports Company subsidiary, Li manages the 51-mile long Panama Canal, which links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but Li is involved in businesses of all levels involving in construction, oil and gas, finance, hotels, publishing, telecommunications and more. As a philanthropist, Li heads the Li Ka-shing Foundation, which he founded in 1980, the largest personal foundation in China and one of the world’s largest donors to charities and community projects in education, medical care and culture in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland. Li was chosen as the top CCTV Magnificent Ten honouree because in August 2006 he announced plans to increase his donations to the foundation named after him, eventually to 50 billion HK dollars (US$6.41 billion), about one-third of his personal assets.

“By doing this,” he said, “I mean to encourage a ‘culture of giving.’”

The CCTV Magnificent Ten awards have been held annually since 2000. They are given to ten people, chosen via online voting, for the contributions they have made to China’s economic development in the previous year. The selection has a focus for each year, such as “Innovation” in 2005 and “Auditing Storm” in 2004.

Both the word “Responsibility” and Li’s selection were natural choices for 2006, a time when social responsibility is a key focus of all socioeconomic leaders in China, Li especially because of his commitment to working with the Chinese Government in effectively seeking a “harmonious” society, a society in which all citizens can benefit from the “achievements of the reform and opening up policies.”

Huang Mengfu, chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, said, “For enterprises, responsibility means, first of all, accountability for their employees, shareholders and clients. It also means responsibility for society, for the environment and for public good.”

Huang was among the VIPs present at the ceremony to present the award to the winners. As the leader of the ACFIC, an organization of industrialists and businesspeople across China, he knows that personal examples set by rich industrialists like Li are rare. According to China’s official press, only about 1 percent of Chinese enterprises have contributed, in one way or another, to charitable or social welfare programmes.

The winners of the 2006 Magnificent Ten Award were chosen from among several hundred candidates recommended by “people of all walks of life” on the CCTV Web site. A 100-member panel was created to guide the selection process. It was composed of 35 economic newspaper and magazine editors, 20 economists, 20 industrialists and 25 Chinese and foreign VIPs. Under standing rules for the award, no Party or government official may be involved in the selection process, and, to ensure fairness, the names of the panel members are made known to the public only after the awards ceremony is held.

This year’s awards were remarkable because two women business executives were among the winners, Zhang Yin, founder and chairwoman of Nine Dragons Paper Industries Company Limited, and Dong Mingzhu, general manager of Gree Electric Appliance, Incorporated. The companies are based in Dongguan and Zhuhai, both in South China’s Guangdong Province. Nine Dragons is involved in many aspects of the paper business, but especially paper recycling; Gree is the largest air-conditioner manufacturer in China and one of the largest in the world.

All the Magnificent Ten selected in previous years were men, except the 2003 selection of a rural woman in Sichuan Province, Xiong Deming. Xiong was honoured because she was bold enough to complain to Premier Wen Jiabao about a local government holding the wages in arrears of her husband and other peasants, who had worked on a highway project. The premier intervened, and Xiong, who could hardly read or write, ended up playing a pivotal role in kicking off a nationwide campaign to help “migrant workers” recover wages held in arrears or pocketed by their employers.

When Zhang Yin topped the Hurun Report 2006 China Rich List, which was set up by Rupert Hoogewerf in 1999, it took almost everyone who knew Zhang by surprise. She was not very well known, and few knew that she had amassed a fortune estimated at 27 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) by recycling scrap paper imported from the United States.

Zhang, a native of China’s Heilongjiang Province, went to Hong Kong in 1985, where she started a career in waste paper trading with an initial capital of 30,000 yuan.  Aspiring to be a “scrap paper queen,” she expanded her business in the United States by setting up the America Chung Namp, Incorporated (ACN) in 1990. ANC reportedly provides about 80 percent of the scrap paper needed by Nine Dragons Paper for production. For five years in a row, the company has been rated as the largest exporter of raw materials for paper-making and also as the largest container exporter in the United States.

By the end of 2005, Nine Dragons had become China’s largest containerboard maker and one of the world’s largest in terms of production capacity, according to a report by Resource Information Systems Incorporated, a major information body for the global paper and timber industry.

“Environmental protection is an unshakable responsibility for people in the paper-making industry,” Zhang told participants in the January 20 ceremony in the Golden Hall of the Beijing Hotel. “It is in fact the motto of the Nine Dragons. We set aside two to three percent of the investment in any project for pollution control. We see to it that pollutants in waste water our factories discharge are monitored non-stop, 24 hours a day.”

Zhang showed the audience a photo of her with a group of college students. “Each year, Nine Dragons sponsors a new group of students from poor families beginning their four-year college educations. After graduation, they are welcome to work with Nine Dragons,” Zhang said, without specifying the number of the young beneficiaries. “By doing this, we want to contribute to the good of society while cultivating talents for our enterprises.”

Unlike the relatively anonymous Zhang Yin, Dong Mingzhu, general manager of Gree Electric Appliance has enjoyed the fame that comes with Gree, a name brand in China. In 2002, she was chosen by the All-China Women’s Federation as one of the ten most prominent businesswomen in the country. CCTV adapted her book relating her experiences as an industrialist, Lay Out in the World, into a TV series the following year. In 2006, she donated the book’s royalties to authorities in Guizhou Province to build a primary school in an underdeveloped area in the province. Speaking at the Magnificent Ten ceremony, Dong said, “The responsibility for entrepreneurs is not just to build good enterprises. Even more important is for them is to fulfil, in real earnest, their social responsibilities.” She pledged to pay more attention to public good and help more children complete their studies while striving to make Gree a world-famous brand like Qingdao, Shandong Province-based Haier. “After all,” she said, “children represent the future of our country.”

In October 2006, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) made a successful debut on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges. This marked the first time for a Chinese commercial bank to get listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai on the same day. This was viewed as a milestone in China’s reform of its financial system ahead of the World Trade Organization-mandated opening of the financial market to foreign financial institutions by the end of 2006. For this, the 2006 Magnificent Ten award went to Jiang Jianqing, ICBC’s president and chairman.

Heading the country’s largest commercial bank in terms of assets and known as “a helmsman of China’s financial system,” Jiang, a graduate of the Shanghai Jiaotong University who holds a doctorate in business administration, faced a serious challenge when he was first assigned to take charge of ICBC in 2001. ICBC’s non-performing loan (NPL) ratio peaked at 47.5 percent that year. But by the end of 2006, however, Jiang, with 20 years’ experience in the banking industry, had reduced the ratio to a mere 3.8 percent.

He emphasized “the quality of services” when disclosing the “secret behind” ICBC’s success when asked by the audience. “We will continue upgrading the quality of service of the ICBC in an all-around way, including our concept of service, product service, system of service, facilities of service, technologies of service,” Jiang said. “We hope to win over more clients and make them feel at home when trading with the ICBC.”

Shi Zhengrong, chairman of Suntech Power Holdings Company in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, was chosen to receive the 2006 Magnificent Ten award for playing a pioneering role in developing clean, renewable energy. A doctoral-degree holder with several patents to his credit, Shi Zhengrong founded Suntech Power Holdings Company in 2001. The company is now one of the world’s largest producers of photovoltaic equipment that convert sunlight into electricity. 

With the highest market value in the world solar industry, Suntech Power has made successful inroads onto the American, European and Japanese markets. Its products will be used in the National Stadium and other venues for competition during the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. But among all his achievements, Shi said, what he cherished most was that his products have been installed in primary and secondary schools in a region with highest altitude in Tibet. “I was deeply impressed when our products helped light classrooms there for the children,” said Shi.

Also honoured were Li Jiaxiang, chairman of China National Aviation Holding Company and chairman of Air China Limited; Shen Nanpeng, founder and managing partner of Sequoia Capital China; Liu Yonghao, chairman of New Hope Group; Gao Dekang, chairman of Bosideng Group; Zhang Jindong, chairman of Suning Electric Appliance Group; Shang Fulin, chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission. They were chosen for their success in innovation along with a high sense of responsibility for the public good.

Along with the Magnificent Ten award, a Public Good award has been given each year since 2000. The 2006 honour was given to an ethnic Tibetan named Zhaixi Duojie (or Zha Duo as he is better known), deputy secretary-general of the Snow-Land Great Rivers Environmental Protection Association (SGREPA), a non-governmental organization devoted to the protection of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau where three mighty rivers, the Yellow, Yangtze, and Lancang originate.

In 2005 and 2006, SGREPA members toured villages across the region, giving classes in schools, distributing pamphlets and leaflets to residents, and training locals in basic skills for wildlife observation. They also conducted surveys in the region and collected data on the local populations, natural habitats and migration habits of wildlife found there, including some endangered species such as the Tibetan antelope, wild yak, snow leopard and white-lipped deer.

Zha Duo, who has worked in the region as a nature conservationist for the past 10 years, said, “I am just one among hundreds who have worked selflessly to help preserve the ecological systems there. I am fortunate to have witnessed a great job being done.”

Zha Duo is relieved that the government is putting so much money behind efforts to conserve the area. He said his key goal is to work with the government to engage communities in preserving sacred lands.

“While Buddhism teaches us how everything in life is in flux, the traditional approach toward life here shows us that we can live in harmony with nature,” Zha Duo said. “It’s a simple model that works, encouraging fauna and flora to thrive while providing great strength to local communities. Hopefully, we can find a way to give it new life in this time of great change.”