By Ed Zhang Updated: 2016-07-15 08:30:19
For many Chinese, a village inJiangyin is perhaps more famous than the city. The village is calledHuaxi,and it is known for China's first industrial ventures by farmers.
If you go there now, it doesn't bear the slightestresemblance to a Chinese village.
It is a town in size. The village incorporated a number of nearby villages after it became economically powerful. There are factories, public facilities, and villa neighborhoods for its residents, surrounding a central district of tall buildings and tourism services.
And it is an investment holding company in organization.Huaxi'sgroup company holds 48 billionyuan(more than $7.5 billion) worth of investment interests in two listed arms in the domestic capital market and many other companies in China and abroad, according to WuXie'en, the village chief.
The holding company's financial statement released at the end of last year showed that "more than 60 percent of our revenue comes from the service sector," Wusaid proudly.
Wu was elected by the villagers in 2003 to succeed his father, the late village chief WuRenbao.
Huaxiwas only a poor village in the 1970s, like many other villages under the regimented system of the People's Commune. But being poor is not right, said the senior Wu, and he started to lead the villagers' efforts to make money by running secretive industrial operations. This was a politically incorrect move back then, as the People's Commune system only allowed the villagers to concentrate on farming and growing the planned crops.
However, the system of collective farming wasdismantledonce China launched its reforms. At the beginning of the 1980s, rural residents were allowed to seek self-management and off-farm interests, andHuaxi's secretive industrial ventures gave it the advantage of a head start. It became China's richest village in the 1990s, with a nationally enviable level of social security policy, funded by many village-owned industries.
Huaxiwas regarded as a role model by other farmers.Much of the nation's change in the 1980s and 1990swasdriven by the so-called village and township enterprises, or small but competitive industrial companies that used State-owned enterprises'cast-off machines to produce things the SOEs didn't.
Ever since that time, there have been visitors traveling toHuaxievery day to view its changes and learn about its success. And that's how the village's tourism service started.
Now led by the junior Wu, the village is continuing toblaze a trail-by embracingnovelideas and embarking on new adventures.
Of all the services the village is running,Wu Xie'en said,it isn'tlocaltourism, nor all the hospitality and catering businesses thatcontributethe largest share, butfinancial services.
IsHuaxistill a village then? It is, Wu insisted.First, the place has not been any name other than village by the government. And in China, what the name of a village stands for is just the lowest level of society.
Also, Wu said,"we have farmers' stock."He isobviously proud of his heritage, saying it allows him not to easily believe what others say, and to be prudent with money.
Being prudent doesn't mean conservative, however. Wu said he is an avid learner."I visited the United States in 2007, with the specific purpose of checking its economy,"he recalled.
"And after I came back to China, I quicklyshut down some operations, andsold off some of our not quite competitive business interests.So that we couldhold more cash,"he said."And we did."
Huaxi'snon-financial business interests now range from marine engineering and shipping - although the village is land-locked - to tech development in the United States, and the mining of decorative stones in distant lands, even overseas, to meet the demand from the growing number of new middle-class consumers in China.
For the last few years,Huaxihas been making serious efforts to reorganize itself, by reorienting its business development, streamlining its top management,tightening internal disciplineandstrengtheningits position in the industries in which it wants to stay.
In the process, Wu said,"we didn't just use our own brains. We recruited managers from outside the village. We hired international consulting companies."
When asked about his view about the world economy, Wu said:"I'm not worried about China as much as the US. China won't collapse overnight. Butwith the US,I can't feel at ease. Some ofitsold problems are still there."
What to do, then? Wu's answer was straightforward:"Just hold more cash."