Executive calls for solid, honest enterprises
By Bing Lan (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-09-14 08:50

A major Chinese executive has urged Chinese entrepreneurs to stop dreaming of growing big and joining the "Fortune 500" club.

Qin Xiao, chairman of the State-owned conglomerate China Merchants Group, also said that Chinese companies must learn to adapt to an ever-changing economic environment, domestically and globally, instead of clinging to traditional ideas.

He was speaking at the World Economic Forum's China Business Summit, which ended yesterday.

Qin is an influential figure in China's corporate circles. Before joining China Merchants, he was the president of the China International Trust and Investment Corp (CITIC).

Qin said enterprises should focus on maximizing the interests of shareholders and enhancing their own competitiveness.

"We heard lots of voices about striving to be on the Fortune 500 list. But, in fact, lots of enterprises have evident problems," Qin said.

Many enterprises who keep dreaming of joining the Fortune 500 were not actually in good financial condition, and did not have sound asset quality or strong competitiveness.

Enterprises should first be "solid and honest" and then work towards the goal of being strong and then big, he said.

"The sequence can not be reversed and to grow big when you are not solid and strong."

Qin said the current round of cooling down efforts by the government should make Chinese enterprises learn some new lessons.

While the United States has had a round of "jobless growth," China is experiencing high investment growth without real inflation. This is creating difficulties for Chinese executives observing the development of the economy and its cycles, Qin said.

Globally, the interactions among economies - in forms such as changes in global supply chain, outsourcing, exchange rate changes and trade fluctuations are posing increasingly serious challenges to Chinese companies.

"We must use a new angle to observe. The old phenomena have had structural changes with the development of globalization,"

Qin said the Chinese economy is now in a state that people never saw before: The growth rate is very high, but employment pressure is still huge; investment growth is excessively high, but price increases are mild.

Many people are talking about inflation, but lots of industries have actually not emerged from deflation, he said.

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