Jiang's Speech Ushers in New Era for Private Economy: Feed Tycoon

One of China's richest entrepreneurs, Liu Yonghao, Wednesday hailed the speech made by Chinese President Jiang Zemin on July 1, which gave an unprecedented analysis of the relationship between private ownership and political awareness.

"Private enterprises like ours have seen bright prospects from his speech, and the spring for the development of private enterprises has come," said the entrepreneur.

Liu, chairman of the board of the New Hope Group Co., the largest private agricultural enterprise in China, said President Jiang's speech offered a clear definition of the role the private economy has been playing in the national economy.

He told a seminar here that "it will breathe new vitality into the private economy".

During his July 1 speech marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said "it is not advisable to judge a person's political integrity simply by whether one owns property and how much property he or she owns."

"We should judge him or her mainly by his or her political awareness, moral integrity and performance, by how he or she has acquired the property, and how it has been disposed of and used, and by his or her actual contribution to the cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Commentators at home and abroad said the speech will help expand political space for the wealthy entrepreneurs in China, most of whom are outside the Party at the present.

Liu, who became one of China's first millionaires as a private entrepreneur since New China was founded in 1949, said the private economy is expected to grow more rapidly after China's upcoming entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO).

He explained that after China's accession into the WTO, China will open more industries to domestic private investment as well as overseas investment.

Liu, known as China's feed tycoon, and his three brothers started the feed business with 1,000 yuan (about 120 U.S. dollars), including income from the sale of their bikes, watches they used.

To date, sales volume of his companies totals several billion yuan, and he was the only private entrepreneur from China attending the annual forum organized by American magazine Fortune in 1999.

The feed tycoon has been diversifying its investment, putting lots of resources into real estate development, trade, and business concerning biological, telecommunications, financial and insurance products,

He has set up two feed plants in Vietnam and plans to invest 10 million U.S. dollars in a feed production project in the Philippines.

The last decade in the past century has seen the private economy in China mushrooming as the number of privately owned companies reaches 1.58 million, and the number of private business owned by self-employed people totals 30 million.






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