(24 October 2023) Fosun International was recently notified by the British renowned finance magazine, Global Banking and Finance Review that it received three awards from the magazine, namely “Brand of the Year Awards – Holding Group Brand of the Year Asia 2023”, “ESG & Sustainability Awards – Best Sustainable Development Company Asia 2023”, and “CSR Awards – Best CSR Company Asia 2023”.

The awards recognize outstanding companies with remarkable business performance and active promotion of sustainable development

Global Banking and Finance Review pointed out that, after more than 30 years of development, Fosun has grown into a global innovation-driven consumer group with a focus on business segments including health, happiness and wealth in more than 35 countries and regions. As a global large-scale private enterprise, Fosun successfully won out over the “perfect storm” in the first half of this year, and has firmly focused on the needs of global families for health, happiness and wealth, and has implemented the core business-focused strategy, resulting in steady business development. At the same time, Fosun has continued to optimize its capital and asset structure, step up its efforts in the divestment of non-strategy and non-core assets, and actively explore financing channels, thereby maintaining sufficient liquidity. Since 2023, Fosun’s business streamlining strategy has shown positive results, and the Group has successfully navigated through the “maturity wall” without any liquidity pressure. Recently, the international rating agency S&P Global Ratings published a report, recognizing Fosun’s effective efforts in terms of debt reduction driven by asset divestment and debt structure optimization and lifting the Group’s rating outlook to “stable” to affirm the Group’s improved credit profile.

While improving its business operations, Fosun has been strengthening the management of sustainable development, promoting the Group to actively undertake corporate social responsibility, improving the Group’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, and leveraging resources and advantages of Fosun’s global industrial ecosystem to continuously create a better world. In order to promote the sustainable development of Fosun, Fosun has established a top-down, long-term ESG improvement mechanism aimed at further enhancing the ESG performance of the Group and its subsidiaries. Fosun integrates ESG management performance into the performance and remuneration assessment process of executive directors as one of the evaluation factors, continues to benchmark itself with various international companies with good ESG practices, and communicates timely and transparently with rating agencies.

In addition, Fosun has been endeavoring to achieve the “dual carbon” goal, and made a commitment to society – “strive to peak carbon emissions by 2028 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”. In 2022, Fosun formally established a carbon neutrality roadmap to implement carbon neutrality work. In April 2023, it issued its first Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) report, demonstrating its commitment of climate action to the international community and calling on all sectors to work together to promote carbon neutrality.

Fosun develops business for good, actively disseminates good ESG stories and promotes global sustainable development

According to Global Banking and Finance Review, with years of continuous cultivation in sustainable development, long-term responsible operations, effective management, and a steadfast commitment to the original aspiration of “Contribution to Society”, while achieving rapid development, Fosun leveraged its own industrial advantages to continuously advance in the fields of global emergency relief, supporting the fight against malaria in Africa, rural revitalization, health, education, culture and art, and caring for children and adolescents to fulfil its commitment to public welfare.

On 12 October 2023, the academic symposium “Treating Severe Malaria in a New Era”, co-hosted by the CECM Medical Services, Public Health and Sanitation, Kisumu and Fosun Pharma was successfully held in Kisumu, Kenya. It was the first high-standard offline malaria academic seminar sponsored by Fosun Pharma in Africa after the COVID-19 global pandemic. The artemisinin based antimalaria medicines originated from China have made significant contributions to global malaria prevention and control since 2000. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, about 240 million people benefit from artemisinin-based combination therapies every year.

Artesun^® (artesunate for injection) innovated and self-developed by Fosun Pharma is the preferred treatment of severe malaria recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). It has become a well-known Chinese innovator drug in Africa and the world. So far, Artesun^® has been used to treat more than 60 million patients with severe malaria worldwide, most of whom were African children under five years old. In June 2023, the second-generation artesunate for injection Argesun^® independently developed by Fosun Pharma was prequalified by the WHO prequalification (WHO-PQ), becoming the first injectable artesunate presented with a single solvent system with the WHO-PQ, which is expected to further enhance the accessibility of innovative antimalarial drugs and save more lives.

Domestically, under the guidance of Poverty Alleviation Office of the National Health Commission, the China Population Welfare Foundation, the Fosun Foundation and other units launched the Rural Doctors Program in 2017. As of today, the Rural Doctors Program had covered 78 counties in 16 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across China, supporting 23,956 rural doctors and benefiting 3 million grassroots families. The Rural Doctors Program holds the National Heart-warming Rural Doctors case collection and announces National Heart-warming Rural Doctors every year to showcase the works of grassroots health workers, commend and awaken their passion for work, and further raise public awareness. This year’s Health for China 2023 Heart-warming Rural Doctors and Village Hospital Directors Launch Ceremony has been held at Foshan Fosun Chancheng Hospital on 19 October. The organizer has formed a judging panel composed of experts from the China National Health Development Research Center, the Community Health Association of China, the Institute of Medical Information of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and other units to select 25 outstanding representatives from 1,221 cases, including 10 Heart-warming Rural Doctors, 10 Heart-warming Village Hospital Directors and 5 Young Role Models.

The “CSR Awards -- Best CSR Company Asia 2023” presented by the Global Banking and Finance Review commends Fosun’s commitment to social responsibility and recognizes Fosun’s persistence and effort through active promotion and dissemination of good ESG stories.

Global Banking and Finance Review

Global Banking and Finance Review is a leading magazine in the United Kingdom. The Global Banking and Finance Review Awards were established in 2011 to commend companies with outstanding performance within the global finance industry and recognize companies that bring innovations and achievements to the global financial world as well as companies that attach importance to corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. The awards have evolved and grown to include companies in Banking, Foreign Exchange, Insurance, Hedge Funds, Pension Funds, Compliance & Advisory, Corporate Governance, Brokerage & Exchanges, Project Finance, Binary Options, Investment Management, Technology, Asset & Wealth Management, Islamic Finance, Exchange Traded Funds, Real Estate, Corporate Social Responsibility and other areas.