鈥楢nimal feed king鈥 pushes for agricultural studies
Print Edition
WHEN Liu Yonghao, chairman of China’s agricultural conglomerate New Hope Group, stepped into the Great Hall of the People with a speech titled “There is hope for China’s private companies” in 1993, he was both nervous and excited.
He was excited because it was rare for an entrepreneur from the private sector to become a national political adviser, let alone give a speech at the country’s most important political event. He was also nervous because the topic was considered somewhat “sensitive” back when state-owned enterprises still dominated the economy.
To his surprise, the speech featuring the keywords “private” and “hope” received multiple rounds of applause in the Great Hall of the People.
Twenty-six years later, the Sichuan-born entrepreneur has become one of the most recognizable faces during China’s annual Two Sessions, having served as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference for five terms and as a deputy to the National People’s Congress for one term.
“The private sector has now grown into a big part of the economy thanks to the country’s reform and opening-up,” 67-year-old Liu said on the sidelines of the annual sessions of the national legislative and political advisory bodies.
A billionaire who built his fortune from scratch, Liu is known to the world as the “king of animal feed.” Long before Chinese tech tycoons made their fame through fancy Internet products, Liu appeared regularly on the Forbes China Rich List, by helping Chinese farmers raise pigs.
Every spring since 1993, Liu comes to Beijing with at least five proposals. This time he brought eight, most of which center around either serving private companies or improving the agricultural sector.
“People say I am the king of animal feed, a vanguard of reform and a pioneer in China’s anti-poverty fight. But above all, I am a private entrepreneur,” Liu said.
A veteran political adviser, as he likes to describe himself, Liu has submitted a series of proposals that were later turned into policies or government initiatives that fostered the growth of the country’s private sector.
In 1993, seeing the financing bottleneck of the private sector, Liu proposed to set up a bank that serves the interests of private firms, leading to the establishment of China Minsheng Bank three years later, the country’s first national bank founded by private capital.
In 2003, he led a team of CPPCC members to research the well-being of the private economy, which turned into reports that helped shape the famous “36 items on supporting the non-public sector,” a systematic policy document in China to promote the non-public economy.
Liu speaks out for the group that is important to him and the country, worries about their development and fights for a better environment for them, said Li Yining, an economist. “He’s never distracted by his fortune,” Li said.
Last year, as a member of the 13th National Committee of the CPPCC, Liu explained to journalists about his plan to train “green-collar” workers to revitalize the countryside.
“The ‘green-collar’ refers to a new generation of farmers and technicians in the countryside, who should be respected and earn a decent salary,” Liu said.
This year, he proposed that the country should invest more in agricultural studies so that agricultural majors would be willing to go back to the countryside and engage in farming.
“If you were very well compensated and had a promising career path, it wouldn’t really matter whether you raise pigs or make planes,” Liu said.
Every time Liu mentions the word “farmers,” he likes to add “friends” behind it.
“Technological innovation should serve the interests of our farmer friends,” he said, referring to an Internet bank he recently helped launch that uses Big Data to ease credit strain for farmers.
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