Beijing has put forward a plan to develop western China and urgently needs foreign investment. In the days before formally assuming his new post as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)'s new Chief Secretary for Administration, Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) showed his loyalty to the party by planning and organizing the biggest business delegation in Hong Kong history, which marched to western China with much fanfare on May 20, after Tsang took office.
This business delegation was composed of 282 people, including the chief representatives of 70 enterprises. Among them were Thomas and Raymond Kwok (郭炳江,郭炳聯) the bosses of Hong Kong's largest real estate business, Sun Hong Kai Properties (新鴻基地產); Victor and Richard Li (李澤鉅, 李澤楷), sons of mega-tycoon Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), whose business interests include property development, infrastructure, port operations, telcommunications, retail, and media; and Hong Kong's wealthiest businesswoman, Kung Yu-sum (龔如心). Also included were people connected to 61 other enterprises. The market value of those listed companies and industries represented in the business delegation amounted to over HK$880 billion. In addition, the fact-finding delegation also included three semi-official organizations from Hong Kong, as well as nearly 70 Hong Kong and mainland media representatives.
Just as the delegation was about to leave, some of the tycoons leaked the news that they weren't going to complete the trip. Chief Secretary Tsang tried exhaustively to convince the delegates to finish what they had begun, even saying that those who finished the trip would be presented with gifts from private donors. But when it was postulated that the gifts indicated might only be a "kiss" or handshake from Tsang, in the end it was difficult to even get the trip started, let alone finished. All the way up until the delegation's departure, the authorities in charge were unwilling to reveal just how many people were participating. Li Ka-shing's youngest son, Pacific Century CyberWorks (PCCW, 電訊盈科) chairman Richard Li, didn't join the delegation until midway through. After five days, only half the original group of wealthy delegates were left and at the end only one-fourth.
Of course, the authorities did everything they could to boost the morale of their wealthy would-be benefactors. In Beijing, during the second stop on the "go west" trail, the group was received by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基). Zhu appealed for them to seize the opportunities present in the west, saying that if they did so, they could make it to the top 10 richest tycoons list in Hong Kong. This last statement should have elicited mixed feelings from Sir Gordon Wu (胡應湘), Hopewell Holdings' (合和實業) largest shareholder. Wu was one of the earliest Hong Kong businesspersons to invest in China, mainly investing in highways, hotels, and electricity plants located in Guangdong Province's Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. In order to whet Wu's investment appetite, he was received by then premier Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽), who assured him that, anytime Wu found himself at an impasse, he could call on Zhao for assistance. At the time, Xinhua News Agency's president, Xu Jiatun (許家屯) also stated that Wu would one day be Hong Kong's wealthiest person. Presently, Wu's family holdings/property doesn't even rank him in the top 20, let alone as the richest.
RSS