While handing out questionnaires on the streets of Shanghai, could he have thought there would be a day when his company would become the first listed private enterprise of this city? When he saved his money to buy a bottle of Tsingtao beer instead of food, could he have thought there would be a day when he would become an important shareholder of this century-old brand? When he rode his bike to Hainan to chase his dreams, could he have imagined the day when the dream world he built here would become a paradise that countless people would flock to? When he studied difficult and abstruse philosophical textbooks in the classroom, did he ever think there would be a day when he would have the capability and determination to bring health, happiness and wealth to families around the world?

Twenty-six springs and autumns have come and gone. Guo Guangchang’s six questions clearly outline the trajectories of his heart’s journey, his path in life and the development of Fosun. His inspiring story seems to be a fortunate coincidence comprised of all sorts of good luck, but there is actually an undeniable inevitability behind it. Behind those questions is the true meaning of life; every person who thinks seriously, acts conscientiously and persists earnestly will have some degree of “good luck.”

Entrepreneurs are the biggest explorers and builders of the reform and opening up policy. They grab fate by the throat and take the express train known as the times. Their stories are a vivid interpretation of the “China dream” and the “spirit of the times.” Whether it is “cowboy” Li Shufu who talks to cattle in a rural village in Zhejiang province, or Guo Guangchang who rides his bicycle around the streets of Shanghai striving for the future, the things they have in common are they experienced the national reform which the country become prosperous and strong, they witnessed the twists and turns of the country to move forward to a better future, and experienced the excitement, hardship and joy in past 40 years.

In its “A Tribute to 40 Years” series, Zhisland conducted interviews with entrepreneurs to explore their thinking or and mindset in their own words and to trace their paths toward mental self-reliance and spiritual growth. It is hoped that the shared thoughts will illuminate the long road that Chinese enterprises traverse to become great. We sincerely hope that more outstanding entrepreneurs will share their stories, testify to the times, stay true to themselves and keep moving forward.

Author: Guo Guangchang, Chairman of Fosun International

Source: Zhisland (ID: ZHISLAND)

Why study philosophy?

I wish to thank Deng Xiaoping and the reform and opening up policy for allowing me to get enough food to eat so I could study hard to get into a university. I’m also grateful to my alma mater, Fudan University and the Fudan philosophy department for making a farmer’s child into the Guo Guangchang of today.

My hometown of Hengdian in Zhejiang is a place where there are more mountains than fields. It was a very poor place at the time. However, I was fortunate because the reform and opening up of China occurred at the most crucial period of my life. With the parceling out of fields to households, I was always able to eat as much as I wanted, even if it was extremely plain food. As a result, my physical growth wasn’t stunted in any way. Because of the resumption of university entrance examinations, I was able to rely on my own efforts to pass the examination and enter a university. I then went on my first long-distance trip, taking the train to Shanghai. That’s why I’ve been deeply grateful to Deng Xiaoping and grateful to the reform and opening up policy over these 40 years, and want to make contribution to my country and society. This was my original intention and I have always kept this in my mind.

Due to my original mindset, when I was studying for university entrance, I firmly believed that our country would have a greater future and that we must stick firmly to the path of reform and opening up of the country. The first step in China’s reform and opening up was the emancipation of thought. If I could contribute to this emancipation of thought, I would be a person who is valuable to the country and society. With these thoughts in mind, the school of philosophy was my first choice at Fudan University.

Some people may think that philosophy is useless. Although it is true that studying in the school of philosophy didn’t teach me any basic skills, it did teach me how to think and learn. The important thing was that the study of philosophy required one to read many books with no limit to the readings. This helped me gain a better understanding of society and life. It was because books were my companions during my time at university that I had a very fulfilling and enriching university experience. It is precisely because of my foundation of extensive reading that I have pondered more often and more deeply than others about personal matters, social matters and national matters.

Among the many books I devoured in those years, one book had a particularly profound impact on me. The book was called the Record of Rites (Liji): chapter of ‘The Great Learning’ (Daxue). Many of the philosophical ideas in this book became the foundation for my future career. I pondered deeply on the meaning of the phrase: “Self-improvement, then manage your family, and then govern your state, that is the only way to bring justice and virtue to the world.” It is often said that one’s university years are when one’s outlook on the world, one’s values and one’s perspective on life are established and determined. During those years, I wondered what my future path should be as a Chinese man faced with the reform and opening up of the nation.

Why did I ride a bicycle to Beijing and Hainan?

A Chinese idiom says “Read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles”. After living for more than two years on campus and having not gone anywhere far away during that time, my heart burned with the desire to go out and see the world. The earthshaking changes outside the campus being brought about by reform and opening up were a constant attraction to me.

In the summer vacation of 1987, I finally put my idea into practice and decided to take a look at our capital. How could I get there? I was dirt poor at the time and could barely manage to support myself at university through some petty trade, but I had absolutely no money for travel. After much deliberation, as I had all the free time I needed, I decided to ride a bicycle all the way to Beijing. As for my travel expenses, my friend’s mother, who was a factory director, gave me RMB 200 Yuan to support my dream of going to Beijing.

After arriving at Beijing, I sold my bicycle to obtain the funds for the return trip. On the way back, I deliberately took a detour to Qingdao. It just so happened that it was cheaper to return to Shanghai from there by ship. No one would have predicted that I would experience something that could be considered to be quite miraculous before I left Qingdao.

When I arrived at Qingdao, the first thing I did was to buy a ticket to Shanghai. After buying the ticket, I realized that I only had enough money either for a very simple meal or a bottle of Tsingtao beer. At that time, Tsingtao beer was a famous Chinese brand and was especially scarce – when I was in Fudan, my fellow classmates and I would be overjoyed for half a day if we were able to share one bottle of Guangming beer amongst us. I thought that I should be a little extravagant since I was in Qingdao, so with great determination, I skipped my meal and slept at the pier for one night and finally got a taste of Tsingdao beer.

At that time I thought that it would be so cool if I could drink Tsingdao beer every day! Who would have known at the time that Fosun would become the second largest shareholder of Tsingdao Brewery one day? “Fosun brings you great fortune and prosperity” beer has now become one of the favorite beverages of Fosun’s colleagues. Thinking about it now, the reform and opening up of the nation gave us bread and gave us beer as well. This is the greatest power.

In the second year after my trip to Beijing, the news of Hainan Province’s official establishment spread throughout China. At that time, many people at the Fudan campus wanted to see this hub where the reform and opening up policy was the most heated, and I was no exception. That’s why I planned another bicycle trip that year.

In the summer of 1988, 12 classmates and I left Shanghai with a RMB 3000 Yuan sponsorship from Forever Bicycle Factory and a letter of introduction from the Fudan University Youth League Committee. We biked all the way along the southeast coast to Hainan because five special economic zones of China at that time were along this route. So we biked for more than 3,000 kilometers, conducting surveys along the way, until we arrived at Hainan.

Even now, I still clearly recall the grand scene of 100,000 talents coming together in Hainan and the impact it had on me. I thought to myself that this has to be the driving force of the times. We spent six or seven days in Hainan surrounded by throngs of people at the “Wall at the East Lake of Haikou”. Many university students who were “study overseas” and stay in Hainan, they couldn’t find jobs and started selling wontons and setting up stalls to hawk goods on the streets. Although the infrastructure was very underdeveloped there—there was only one traffic light in all of Haikou—everyone saw the great opportunities created by the reform and opening up policy and were willing to work harder for a better life. This trip planted a seed in the depths of my heart: I decided that I would come back here one day and make a place of my own!

Over a month ago, I went to Sanya, Hainan again to witness the benchmarking of Hainan Tourism 3.0 – the grand opening of Atlantis in Sanya. Soon I had forgotten how I presented my speech at the ceremony that day, but my friends told me later that my voice was choked with emotion several times during my speech on stage. I think that a lot of effort and love had been invested into nurturing the seeds that were planted 30 years ago, making it possible for them to take root, sprout, and grow into Atlantis, a resort with 1314 rooms, Asia’s largest aquarium, and a fantastic water park with a dolphin bay; and this is something that I had been anticipating for a very, very long time.

Why found Fosun?

I am grateful to the reform and opening up policy as it gave me the opportunity to change my life, and I am grateful to the open-minded city, Shanghai, for giving us, “the outsiders” who were fresh graduates from the university, with open-arms and kindness. This is why I was determined to create value and contribute to society via a commercial approach.

When I graduated from university, I was especially grateful to my teacher at Fudan who gave me the opportunity to stay in Shanghai and be a teacher in Fudan. I especially cherished this opportunity because having a stable job in Shanghai was far beyond the expectations of my family. To me, this was a perfect solution as it also allowed me to repay my alma mater for the favor and grace of my education.

At that time I was living in an ivory tower in the campus as a teacher for the Communist Youth League Committee. The salary was not high, but I had plenty of time to do the things that I was interested in, such as observing the transformation and development of society as a spectator. That’s why I always paid attention to the outside world during this time and kept a close eye on the heated pace of the reform program.

But as time passed by, I started to think: the tide of change is already sweeping across the land of China, but my steps halted at the stage of “Self-improvement”. What is my future? When I was in university, I had a small business to support me so I could complete my studies, and at the same time, I saw the positive effect of business on social change outside the campus. Therefore, I wondered if I could take part in the reform and opening up by starting a business. But truth be told, when I first had my idea of starting a business, I didn’t have very high expectations for myself, but I thought that at least I could change the living conditions of my family through the business. I would be satisfied if it brought me to the level of “manage my family”.

In 1992, inspired by the speech of Deng Xiaoping in the South China tour, I resolutely and decisively joined my hands with several like-minded classmates of Fudan to truly devote myself wholeheartedly to the wave of the economic construction. At that time, our start-up capital was only RMB 38,000 Yuan.

It was easy to make the decision, but then my partners and I faced an embarrassing situation as Fosun had absolutely nothing at that time. We had no talent, no market and no money, making Fosun a “three-no-enterprise” in its truest sense. What should we do? I suddenly remembered my “old partner” – the bicycle.

At that time, a company that had just entered the Shanghai market set up a tender to find a consulting company to be their advisor. After rounds of fierce competition, we won the tender. The few of us then distributed questionnaires on the streets by bicycle. I remember that I was detained by a security patrol officer at the time and was taken to the street security management office. I was finally able to return to the street with two bags of questionnaires after doing a lot of explaining. Fortunately, our efforts finally paid off, as Ganso Foods was very satisfied with our market research and adopted our recommendations. Later, we successively completed a few market research jobs, which proved to me that I really could support myself through this business and gave me great confidence.

More students from Fudan joined us later, especially a few students in the field of biogenetics. Their participation made it possible for Fosun to develop its first product – the PCR Hepatitis B Diagnostics Reagent.

However, even if we had a good product, we still needed to expand our channels bit by bit. I remember that Wang Qunbin and I used to sit on the hard seats of the green trains of that era on overnight trips to sell our products all across China.

Now that I recall, that was the beginning of Fosun’s business. We formally entered the world of biomedicine and began to deepen our efforts in the industry. We then used this as our foundation to invest in technology and R&D innovation, and truly made industrial operations and technological innovation as our drivers. As a result, Fosun had “established a business” unknowingly as we struggled day and night.

It is because we recognized the health and happiness which brought about by business and technological innovations. Thus, we changed our philosophical maxim of “Self-improvement, then manage your family, and then govern your state; that is the only way to bring justice and virtue to the world” from The Great Learning to “Self-improvement, Teamwork, Performance, and Contribution to Society,” and made this Fosun’s mission and value. This is because we knew that there were still many people around us who were unable to live and work in peace and contentment and they needed us to lead them to a happier life through the help we could provide via the establishment of our business. This is the truest portrayal of Fosun’s determination to make contribution to the country.

Why participate in the mixed reform?

The shareholding reform resulted in the springing up of many private enterprises like Fosun. The rise of China’s capital market and the mixed ownership that followed soon after gave Fosun the opportunity to deeply participate in the reform process and thereby share in and become part of China’s rapid growth.

In 1986, Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of the reform and opening up policy, gave a share of stock to Mr. John Phelan, the then-chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, to express his determination to build Shanghai into an international financial center. At that time, I never expected Fosun to become the first listed enterprise in Shanghai 12 years later.

I remember that in those days, the approval system of total control was still implemented for IPOs. At that time, after reading some reports from Fosun, the leaders of the Shanghai Municipal Government and the Planning Commission had a high evaluation of our independently developed medical entrepreneurial company founded by university graduates. In 1998, in order to support the development of Shanghai’s local science and technology private enterprises, and to support the entrepreneurial efforts of university students, the Shanghai Government gave Fosun the green light for our IPO application. I would like to thank the municipal government once again for giving such a good opportunity to a group of fresh university graduates who had only been in business for a few years. We would also like to express our gratitude to the city of Shanghai for the kindness and giving us the opportunity to create a place for ourselves here.

The successful listing of “Fosun Industrial” (later renamed to Fosun Pharma) provided us with the capital for rapid growth in the industry. During that time, state-owned enterprises were suffering from huge losses, debt reorganization and over-capacity issues. The funds that we obtained from the listing allowed us to participate in the historical process of restructuring state-owned enterprises in order to rejuvenate them.

In 2003, we co-financed and established Sinopharm Group with Sinopharm. Fosun contributed RMB 500 million Yuan in cash for 49% of the equity, and Sinopharm contributed inventory assets in the pharmaceutical distribution industry for 51% of the equity. It was China’s first mixed-ownership enterprise in the pharmaceutical business, which jointly established by a state-owned enterprise and a private enterprise.

Sinopharm’s pharmaceutical distribution business was then facing a serious operational dilemma, but we were optimistic about its sales network across the provinces and cities of the country and this had a great synergy with our pharmaceutical business.

Since we joined, we implemented many market-oriented management concepts, including decision-making mechanisms, market awareness management methods and incentive mechanisms to the company, and achieved remarkable results. In the following years, Sinopharm’s sales surged almost every year. As a non-controlling shareholder, we positioned ourselves as a responsible long-term strategic shareholder, which meant that we would neither overstep the boundaries nor neglect our duties.

In 2009, we also helped Sinopharm achieve a successful listing in Hong Kong, becoming the largest IPO in the global pharmaceutical industry since 2000. Today, Sinopharm’s annual sales volume exceeds RMB 270 billion Yuan, which is more than 30 times the RMB 8 billion Yuan in sales posted in the first year. It has become one of the world’s top three pharmaceutical distribution and supply chain service providers, and China’s largest.

We had many successful cases of “mixed” entities like this during that time, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Examples of this include Chongqing Yaoyou, Jiangsu Wanbang, and Guilin Pharma. These companies have all become important leading innovation companies in China’s pharmaceutical industry. Artesun (injectable artesunate) produced by Guilin Pharma is the only WHO-certified treatment for severe malaria and has saved more than 20 million patients in Africa in the last 10 years.

Looking back at Fosun Pharma from when it was listed in 1998 to the present, we are very proud of the company’s development and innovative practices. On the foundation of the mixed ownership system, the first monoclonal antibody biosimilar drug HLX01, a biopharmaceutical unicorn that we incubated nine years ago, has formally passed the third phase of clinical trials and will soon become the first biosimilar drug to be listed in China. Our small-molecule innovative drug development platform – Chongqing Fuchuang – already has four innovative drugs that have entered the clinical trial stage, and six products will be listed in China and the United States within one year. We have also integrated high-quality medical R&D and manufacturing resources in the United States, the United Kingdom and India, etc. We can say from our hearts that we have not failed the expectations that Shanghai and leaders of all levels had for us back then.

Of course, we have also begun to gradually enter industries other than the pharmaceutical industry through similar methods, examples such as Nanjing Nangang and Yuyuan. In 2016, a private consortium led by us signed an agreement with the Zhejiang Provincial Government to jointly build the Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Taizhou high speed railway (HSR) project with a total investment of RMB 46.2 billion following the PPP (Public-Private-Partnership) approach. This was China’s first HSR controlled by private capital, and both the resources and advantages of the government, state-owned enterprises and private enterprises complemented each other in this project. The establishment of this transportation infrastructure will greatly enhance urban functions and efficiency of the served areas.

By keeping abreast of national industrial developments and the increasing demands of the people, Fosun has so far participated in more than 30 mixed-reform projects and injected vitality into our partnering state-owned enterprises and central enterprises in the areas of corporate governance, strategy development, capital matching, operations managements, etc., to achieve win-win outcomes for all. Through mixed ownership, we have benefited from China’s growth momentum and achieved rapid expansion in our own industries. From our initial involvement in the pharmaceutical and real estate industries, Fosun has now grown into a diversified industrial group that is also active in the retail industry, insurance industry and other industries. By improving the operations of mixed-ownership enterprises, we have gradually consolidated our industrial foundation and expanded our strategic horizon while laying the foundation for our subsequent globalization strategy.

Moreover, we have clearly realized that as long as we carefully take things step by step in every industry we are engaged in, don’t burn money, don’t seek to become bigger for the sake of becoming bigger, and attach great importance to the appointment and selection of talent, then we will have a stronger and larger foundation in these industries and will be able to provide customers with more convenient and higher quality services. I am more and more certain that this is the bedrock of Fosun’s “founding”.

Why go global?

If you want to expand throughout the whole world, you must understand China because China has already become the second largest economy in the world. If you want to develop in China, you must understand the world because China is already very international. This is my most fundamental view of business going forward. The ability to be driven by both China and the world at the same time will be one of our strongest competitive strengths in the future.

2007 was the first year of Fosun’s globalization and almost the 30^th year since the implementation of the reform and opening up policy began. With the successful listing in Hong Kong, we entered the capital market for the first time, adopted international standards for financial and accounting systems, faced the evaluation of global investors, and set our sight on the world.

I felt then that China’s economy had reached a stage where the best companies in the world had come to China. If Chinese companies couldn’t “go global” and didn’t have the ability to integrate global resources, they wouldn’t have any way to compete with others. That’s why Fosun proposed a globalization strategy at that time, and why we believe that going global is an inevitable choice that must be made for China’s economy and enterprises to reach a certain stage of development.

In 2008, the subprime crisis unfolded in the United States, causing the global economy to fall into a recession for the next several years. As the pace of globalization in China was still relatively slow and people were still cautious, not many companies had truly “gone global” so the impact suffered was also relatively limited. On the contrary, there was a deep reduction in the valuation of a large number of overseas assets, which created lots of investment opportunities with value mismatch.

However, even though there were many opportunities, overseas investment was still risky, especially since Fosun was still a “newbie” in the field of overseas investment. It was difficult to find investment targets, but it was even more difficult to assess the value of the investment. Therefore we initially tested the water and invested in some outstanding Chinese enterprises that were seriously undervalued in overseas secondary market. It is because we have confidence in our evaluation of Chinese companies. At this time, Fosun urgently needed a person to lead the way, show us in and help us to avoid the risk and obstacles in overseas investment.

At the same time, at the strategic level, we were not “going global” for the aim of buy low and sell high. Instead, we were hoping to take advantage of the rise of the Chinese consumer market and “bring back” high-quality overseas brands and products. I thought that 30 years of the reform and opening up policy had enabled the Chinese government to accumulate a wealth of experience in the operation and management of a market economy. The continuous industrialization and urbanization in China over those years and the huge consumption and investment demand gradually released in China would both provide strong and lasting momentum for Fosun’s future development. As “China expertise” we had to do our best to “combine China’s growth momentum with global resources.”

In early 2010, John Snow, the former United States Secretary of the Treasury, joined Fosun as an advisor to the board of directors to share his experience in senior executive work in Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Afterwards, Fosun and Carlyle Group, the world’s largest private equity fund, announced their plans for global strategic cooperation, focusing on the opportunities brought about by China’s rapid economic growth and establishing China’s first foreign-funded partnership fund. By cooperating with world-leading individuals and teams, Fosun started to globalize its investment, financing, operations management, human resources and other aspects of the company to reach the benchmarks of, and to learn from, the international first-class companies, and gradually became a global enterprise.

We soon welcomed Fosun’s first major overseas investment, the French leisure vacation holiday chain Club Med. Prior to this, Fosun had never been formally involved in the tourism industry. For this investment, we did a lot of research and found that the global tourism industry was very large, especially the leisure vacation segment, which accounted for a large part of the tourism industry abroad but had almost zero presence in China. That’s why we decided to introduce foreign brands and experience to China and contribute our efforts to the tourism supply side.

At that time, Club Med had suffered losses for five consecutive years and the board of directors allowed Fosun, a China-based company became a shareholder with minority stake, but the condition was that we would have to help them enter the China market.  Speaking of the tourism industry, we were not as professional as they were, but when it came to the China market, the knowledge and resources that we had accumulated over many years of industrial operations and capability were invaluable to them. In 2010, just six months after we became shareholder of the company, we successfully helped Club Med open its first resort in Yabuli, Heilongjiang. This efficient cooperation deeply impressed the proud French people and established a relationship of trust between us.

After that we kept on helping them to expand the business in China. The number of Chinese tourists increased rapidly and China soon became the second largest market in the world after France. At the same time, after gaining a considerably deeper understanding and knowledge of the tourism industry, we proposed a privatization of Club Med in 2013 and completed the privatization in 2015. Through our management and sharing of resource, we managed to turnaround Club Med’s loss-making business into profitable after the privatization, and the resort chain’s compound annual growth rate of operating profit for the last three years reached 26%.

Throughout the Club Med project, from making initial contact to becoming a shareholder and the subsequent privatization, we have been working with the best investment institutions and individuals in the world. By learning, studying, researching and exploring the paths and methods of globalization and accumulating talent, the prototype of Fosun’s global model was gradually formed. This project is a process in which we verified and matured our model. By continuously replicating this model, we were able to fully roll out our global strategy. Today, we are already developing our business deeply in seventeen countries and expanding into various industries. We already have dozens of international brands in the medical, tourism, fashion and insurance fields, among others. Fosun has transformed itself into a global empowerment platform that creates value through the collaborative integration of its portfolio companies, with its industrial capabilities accumulated over many years.

Looking back at the past 10 years, Fosun’s pace of globalization may not be the fastest, but it has always been very stable. Our success has been based on our keen judgment of China’s future economic development trends and our development philosophy of building our success with stability and consistency.

In addition, with the continuous improvements in China’s industries, we have also been able to export products, technologies and models around the world and in many industry areas, especially in emerging markets such as Africa and India. That’s why our global strategy today is no longer to combine China’s growth momentum with global resources; instead, it has been upgraded to the version 2.0: Achieve industry development driven by China and the world. This is “Contribution to Society”.

Why we want to create happier lives for families worldwide?

Along the lines of “Contribution to Society”, Fosun now has a clear mission—to create happiness lives for families worldwide—and I will devote all of my life to achieving this goal.

To this day, I often think about why Fosun and I exist. From the original start-up capital of RMB 38,000 Yuan, Fosun has grown to have total assets of more than RMB 530 billion; net profit of more than RMB 13 billion Yuan; and rapid growth averaging 29% over the last five years. Fosun’s net debt ratio is below 50%, which means it is financially strong, and Fosun is ranked number 416 in the Fortune 500. However, do numbers represent everything about Fosun?

When I look at the young people in metropolitan areas working late nights for a better life, children running joyfully with their families in the park, elderly people in hospitals accompanied by their children, and parents in poverty-stricken mountain areas who worry about food, health and education for their children, I know that there are still many things that Fosun and I need to achieve. To sum up all these problems and issues, it is the mission of Fosun, and it is our mission to creating a happier lives for every family in the world.

This is not empty talk. In Fosun’s view, we are currently in the best of eras, because it is the 40^th anniversary of the reform and opening up policy, because of the integration of China and the world, and because of global technological innovation. At the same time, standing at the forefront of this best of eras, Fosun and I have many visions for the future. With regards to the future:

✦ We can see that consumers’ time is getting more and more precious. This is why we carefully select products and services for them. Saving customers’ time is creating value for them.

✦ We can see that the accelerating speed at which technology is converted into products and industries. This means technology will become our most powerful cornerstone to support our service to customers. For example in the area of health, we hope that because of Fosun, cancer will no longer be a threat to life, and now we can see the dawn in this area.

✦ We can see that the boundaries between participants in business sectors are becoming blurred. That’s why Fosun pursues the creation of a sound ecosystem and the use of cross-sector methods to integrate resources and collaborate services, so we can offer reliable one-stop solutions.

✦ We can see that flexible industrial intelligence has been achieved. That’s why  intelligent manufacturing and personalized design to meet customer demands will eventually be realized at the cost of industrialization.

✦ We can see that new technologies such as the mobile Internet has now made internal organizational management more efficient and comprehensive. This will allow Fosun’s global cross-border integration to grow larger and agile.

Based on this, Fosun will reclassify its business into three segments: health, happiness and wealth, and set our new corporate vision as, “Rooted in China, creating a global happiness ecosystem fulfilling the needs of one billion families in health, happiness and wealth”.

✦ The reason we speak of families and not individuals as our customers is because a family is the smallest unit of happiness in our world. No matter what stage of life you are in, the companionship of family is an indispensable part of your happiness.

✦ The reason why we focus on health, happiness and wealth is because these three areas basically cover all the needs of a happy family, and because the industries that correspond to these demands are the areas in which Fosun has been developed its business for many years.

✦ The reason why we will serve the world with our roots in China is because Fosun has always believed in the driving force of China’s development and has always believed that the China market is huge and with great potential, and that China will definitely become better in the future. At the same time, as Chinese industries become more globalized, Fosun will also shoulder more global responsibilities.

✦ The reason why we want to build a happiness ecosystem is because the needs in health, happiness and wealth of a family are all interconnected. The products and services provided by Fosun to family customers do not exist in isolation; rather, they make up an organic ecosystem – a C2M ecosystem that seamlessly links customers and makers, and provides a complete set of customized solutions based on customers’ needs.

At the same time, Fosun has never forgotten its “original intention” to “contribute to society” and will do its best to truly help more people. Whether it is the “Rural Doctors Poverty Alleviation Program” that helps 1.5 million rural doctors live with more dignity and better serve local villagers, or using artesunate as a tool to contribute for a malaria-free world. Fosun is already on its way, what we need to do is to do the right thing, do the difficult things, do things with patience, and we will keep pressing ahead.

These are my thoughts and ideas from my 26 years of entrepreneurship, and they reflect my deepest convictions. Finally, as a witness and a beneficiary of the reform and opening up of China, I would like to thank this era once again. China’s reform and opening up and the globalization of China’s economy have brought great opportunities for me and Fosun. I would also like to thank everyone who helped and supported the growth of Fosun, including our customers, our employees and their families, the government leaders, financial experts, shareholders, investors and reporters, and others.

I will use my life-long efforts to realize the mission of Fosun and fulfil Fosun’s responsibilities. Because of Fosun, every family around the world will have a happy life.