Success harvested from a farmer's instinct

Li Rucheng, the poster boy of Ningbo's economic resurgence, likes to talk about his roots on the farm.

The 59-year-old president of the Youngor Group, a multinational corporation that posted a 2009 profit of 4.15 billion yuan (473 million euros) on sales of 27.4 billion yuan, credits the economic development of China in general and the success of his company in particular to what he calls "the farmer's instinct".

In a rare interview, Li says: "The farmer in me never says die. Even in the worst of times, we keep our hope and we persevere."

This, he says, is the driving force behind the successful turning of a basement workshop with several sewing machines into an enterprise in manufacturing, equity investment and property development, including several hotels and a zoo.

Li was born in Shanghai but moved to Ningbo, a port city in Zhejiang province, East China, with his parents when he was a child.

Like many peers who dropped out of high school during the turbulent years of the late 1960s, Li was assigned to work on a State farm in Ningpo when he was 15.

In the early 1980s, he was sent to work in a garment factory, also in Ningbo,.

In a factory started with a State grant of 20,000 yuan and 20 workers, Li rose from laborer to head of the cutting department. After saving the factory from closure by securing a large outsourcing order, Li was promoted to director and changed the factory's name from Youth Garment Factory to Youngor in 1993 when it began to diversify into other lines of business.

Youngor listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in 1998.

Youngor Group has held the biggest share of China's shirt market for 15 consecutive years. Provided to China Daily

And Li's efforts in promoting Youngor helped catapult the company to the list of "Top 500 China Enterprises in 2010" compiled by China Enterprise Confederation and China Entrepreneur Association.

Youngor has had the biggest share of China's shirt market for 15 consecutive years. Its share of the Chinese market for men's suits is also the largest, statistics from China National Commercial Information Center show.

Li says his company has also achieved satisfactory returns in equity investment and property development.

"My dream is to see more and more people in Zhejiang and all over China dress in Youngor garments, live in Youngor apartments and have fun in Youngor zoo in Ningbo," Li says.

Although Youngor has a fine record in equity investments, its property development strategy has been questioned by investors and competitors.

But Li has never doubted his decision to diversify into a field totally unrelated to garment manufacturing. "Did I not make a successful transformation from a farmer to a manufacturer? Of course, I did," he says.

Li says there is no reason why a company cannot engage in different businesses, even if they are not related. Success, he says, depends on the care one puts into planning, "just like you need to think carefully when you are involved in a romantic relationship".

He takes criticisms by some analysts of his "romantic" style of management as a "kind warning".

"I always want to be practical and pragmatic," Li says. "I don't socialize a lot because such activities are mostly unproductive."

When it comes to charity, Li says he prefers a "pragmatic" approach that focuses on results rather than on publicity. Youngor, he says, is still a "medium-sized" enterprise, compared to some of its competitors in the world. "Our first and foremost task is to accumulate capital," he says.

If that sounds cold-hearted, so be it, he says. "I am not a stingy person," he says. "When I make a donation, I want to make sure that the money is spent on projects that can bring visible and accountable benefits to the needy people.

"My personal wealth does not qualify me to be rich enough to promise all-out donation."

In the past, the company has made "generous" donations to build schools, and homes for the elderly, Li says. Since 1997, Youngor had paid for the building of more than 10 primary schools in Xinjiang, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Gansu and the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

In March this year, Li was reported to have said he would retire at 60. But he changed his mind after meeting a 70-something president of another company. "He made me think twice about my retirement plan," Li says. "I don't think I need to retire as early as I originally planned."

Meanwhile, he is devoting some time in planning and designing a Chinese-style businessmen's club in Ningbo.

"I would like it to be a pavilion with Chinese characteristics, just like this beautiful chamber," he says, pointing at a picture of a historic building in Ningbo.

The club is obviously meant to be a legacy for his adopted hometown.