Down-to-earth Zhang proves there's money in muck

Zhang Yin

LONDON - Chairman Mao once said women hold up half the sky, but he surely could never have predicted that one day self-made paper recycling tycoon Zhang Yin would top the list of China's wealthiest people with a fortune of $5.08 billion.

Nor could he have foretold that her riches would be built on a pile of old rubbish, but socialism with Chinese characteristics is capable of producing all kinds of surprises.

Zhang, the 49-year-old founder of Nine Dragons Paper, which buys scrap paper from the United States for use in China, shot from 36th to pole position in the annual China Rich List compiled by Hurun Report, making her the first woman ever to top the rich list.

"She is the wealthiest self-made woman in the world," said researcher Rupert Hoogewerf, who has been compiling the rich list for seven years.

Last year her wealth was estimated at $570.64 million but shares in Nine Dragons have tripled since she listed her company on the Hong Kong stock exchange and the market for recycled products is growing at a furious pace.

China is getting richer at a staggeringly fast pace. The number of billionaires in the booming country has doubled to 15 from last year. There are 35 women on the 500-strong Hurun list, just 7 per cent of the total.

The rich list highlights the mammoth task facing the government of President Hu Jintao in narrowing the gap between rich and poor in China.

With the economy growing at double-digit percentage rates every quarter, some people are getting exceedingly rich but others, particularly China's 800 million rural poor, are not seeing much of the spoils of rampant economic expansion.

The list also shows a geographical divide in the way wealth is distributed in China - four of the 10 richest people in China live in Guangdong Province, across the border from Hong Kong.

In many ways, the rich lists have mirrored changes in Chinese society - in recent years the ranks of the super-rich have included real estate barons and dot-com tycoons. But with raw materials in short supply, the demand for recycled products has turned paper into gold for Zhang.

Her story is a classic tale of rags to richest.

The oldest of eight children in a military family in northeastern Heilongjiang province, she moved to Hong Kong in 1985 and set up her business with just $5650. She moved to the US in 1990 with the dream of becoming an "empress of waste paper". Proving the old adage that where there's muck, there's brass, in 1996 she set up in Dongguan, near the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen in Guangdong province. There the waste paper is recycled into containerboard at factories in southern and eastern China.

Zhang listed shares in her company on the Hong Kong stock exchange in March, like many other companies on the mainland keen to take advantage of an international enthusiasm for anything to do with China. While the Chinese property market has taken quite a battering in recent months, the property magnates are not going hungry. Seven of the top 10 richest are property developers.

Asked what the secret to her success is, Zhang says modestly that her down-to-earth personality has been a big factor. And luck.

- INDEPENDENT