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Ms. Wei, Carbon Queen of China
My favorite of the three business tycoons blogged here is Ms. Wei, a close personal family friend. How she has navigated all the land mines of doing business in her highly unregulated industry and maintain her ethics and sanity along the way is nothing short of astounding. She reminds me of the great developers of post war America, where opportunity, hard work, and perseverance created some of today’s most famous and lasting empires. What she is building in China now may be on par with some of the well-known business conglomerates in developed nations across the Pacific.
Her bread and butter is the “active carbon” producing facilities she owns in the suburbs in Chongqing and, as of this year, in the far northwest of China in Heilongjiang Province as well. She will soon assume market leader status for this product which is needed for everything from alcohol distillation to water filtration systems. Her husband often jokes that if he had as much money as her, he would “sit on it and eat it for the rest of his days”. She just laughs at him and with a healthy ambition, looks to pour more money and resources into this and new enterprises in order to continue expansion. As well as her carbon firm, she is starting to flex her money-making muscles in other areas, such as air conditioning systems for the automotive industry (many parts of which must be imported now), and walnut groves that she foresees making major inroads into domestic markets once the trees mature in 5 years time. Another advantage of growing walnuts for her is that the shell is perfect for burning and creating a high quality carbon for her established business niche. As in all of her endevours, I don’t doubt her one iota. She has the knowledge, drive, and experience to back her on her quest to blaze new business boulevards.
last modified Aug 28, 2004 at 19:00
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