China gets a taste for coffee
LIU YONGHAO CUTS a modest figure considering he is the fifth-richest man in China and chairman and owner of New Hope Group, the country’s largest privately owned enterprise. A former schoolmaster, he sits in a chilly office in Chengdu and speaks softly of his decision to quit teaching and head to the fields in 1982.
“Back then, my monthly salary was the equivalent of $5,” he says. “I thought I’d lose $5 a month but maybe I could get the whole world in exchange, such were the benefits of Deng Xiao Peng’s reforms.”
Liu pawned his bicycle and watch, and borrowed from his family to find the $150 starting capital for his business. It proved a sound investment. New Hope is now China’s largest agribusinesses group, with...
