Henry Fok: A patriot and a patron of sport
By Qiu Quanlin and Wang Zhuoqiong (China Daily)Updated: 2006-11-01 06:57
"Mr Fok was very thoughtful," He said. "He was concerned about China's image as a nation. In his eyes, sports is the window of a country. The betterment of sports, he believed, would help China to shed its weak image and improve the lives of ordinary people."
It was after the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles that Fok donated HK$100 million (US$12.5 million) to establish the sports and physical education foundation that bears his name. In all, he contributed about HK$400 million (US$50 million) to the foundation, which has built more than 20 sports centres, gymnasiums and facilities on the Chinese mainland, in Hong Kong and Macao.
And since the Barcelona Games in 1992, whenever a Chinese athlete has won an Olympic medal, the foundation has given him or her prize money and gold US$80,000 and 1 kilogram of gold for gold medallists, 500 grams of gold and US$40,000 for silver medallists, and 250 grams of gold and US$20,000 for bronze medallists.
Development dream
Of course, it was Fok's acumen in oil, real estate, hotels and restaurants that helped him amass a fortune estimated at US$3.5 billion.
Kwong Siuming still remembers May 10, the date of the last meeting that Fok attended regarding the development of Nansha, a district in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, that shares a sea border with Hong Kong.
One of the members of the Fok Ying-tung Foundation, Kwong is also general manager of the Nansha IT Development Park, one of the foundation's investment projects.
"Mr Fok was born in Guangdong and pinned high hopes on the development of Nansha," Kwong said. "He even asked for information on its development on the phones when he was ill."
And it's no surprise that the Fok Ying-tung Foundation has contributed heavily to Nansha's development in the past 10 years HK$200 million (US$25.6 million), Kwong said.
In 1998, the foundation made the initial investment in the IT development park, in co-operation with the Guangzhou city government and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
"He always had an idea to develop Nansha as a high-tech base in collaboration with Hong Kong," Kwong told China Daily yesterday. "He believed it would bring economic prosperity to the Pearl River Delta."
What's more, Fok developed China's first super aluminium alloy in Nansha. A catamaran named Nansha No 38, which can host more than 300 people and is made of the alloy, began operating on September 1, 1996.
"In the early 1990s, China had to import aluminium alloy catamarans from overseas," Kwong said. "Mr Fok started to produce the country's own by introducing overseas technology to build the boats here."
The future of the foundation-invested projects is secure, Kwong said. "No matter who will be in charge of the foundation in the future, there is a certainty that all projects having been inaugurated before will continue," he said.
And construction on four projects the Nansha Research Institute of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the Yacht Club, the Nansha Rende Hospital and the Nansha Luyuan Residential Community will start this month.
"To continue our efforts in Nansha's development is one of best ways for us members of Mr Fok's private and charitable foundation to commemorate him," Kwong said.
The people at another of Fok's investments the White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou, the Chinese mainland's first five-star hotel have decided on their own way to pay their respects.
"We will keep improving our service to domestic and overseas clients, which
we see as the best way we can remember Mr Fok," said Yang Xiaopeng, the hotel's
general manager．
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