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Yeh, he wants to be a bridge across Straits

By Wang Zhenghua (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-07 07:33

Shanghai -- "You can't imagine how warm the atmosphere is," Hector Yeh said.

Hector Yeh

He was speaking from Taiwan, where, as executive vice-president of the Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland (ATIEM), he attended the welcome dinner for the mainland delegation on Monday.

The 57-year-old president of Shanghai Longfong Food Co is a native of Kaohsiung in southwestern Taiwan, and has been living in Shanghai for 17 years, which he calls his second home.

"I'm particularly impressed by Chen Yunlin's remarks that cross-Straits relations will touch 101 points, just like the 101-story Taipei skyscraper," he said. Chen is the president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and leader of the mainland delegation.

Recalling his first visit to the mainland, Yeh said he felt like he had landed in familiar surroundings."My first stop was Xiamen, where I found people speaking my dialect they even eat the same type of food."

He traveled to Tianjin, Beijing and Shanghai after that and found people there to be kind and amiable, too. That made the farsighted Yeh invest $3.3 million to start his business in Shanghai.

Yeh was born into a porter's family, with his father being the only breadwinner. "When I was young, my mom often old me 'there's no food today because it's raining'," he said. Rain meant no work for his father, and hence no food for the family.

But those days of deprivation made him determined to lift his family out of poverty. So after graduating from college, he gave up the chance to work in a research institute, and instead started his own business of making yuanxiao (round buns with sweet filings) and dumplings. He had learned the art of making them from a relative.

His early days in business were full of struggle and hardship, and he hardly got enough time for the niceties of life. He could breathe a sigh of relief only after seven years when his Longfong Food Co got its second factory.

But he could not relax for long because he realized that Longfong had to expand its market to be competitive. And then he though "the mainland has 1 billion people that means 1 billion dumplings if every one eats one". That is what brought him to the mainland.

Today, Longfong has six factories, 38 branches and employs 3,000 people. Last year, its sales touched 800 million yuan ($117.15 million).

Since the business targets domestic consumers, it has not been hurt by the global financial crisis. Localization and innovation form the core of a food company's success, he said. Longfong has been successful because it adjusted its products to the taste of consumers and with the needs of the times.

Yeh has maintained his simple and thrifty lifestyle despite having all the money in the world to indulge himself. He prefers flying economy class. "An aircraft lands on its rear wheels so why shouldn't I choose to reach a destination before others and save money, too?" he says.

But he is generous when the country or others need his help. Under his leadership, the ATIEM donated 90 million yuan to the Sichuan earthquake victims. He also led a team to Dujiangyan, one of the worst hit areas, on Sept 17 and sponsored 700 temporary houses.

As honorary chairman and former head of Shanghai-Taiwan business association, Yeh is keen to serve as a bridge between the mainland and Taiwan, and helped organize a reception for former Kuomintang chairman Lien Chan when he visited Shanghai during his ice-breaking trip to the mainland in 2005.