By staff reporter ZHANG HUA

"MY major is Business Administration. I have also worked in finance and international trade and have had my own fashion boutique and restaurant. I seem born to flit from one industry to another," says Fan Jinghui, director of Sino-Canada Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

Turning Point

Fan was born in Beijing in 1963. Soon after, his parents were dispatched to Shanxi Province, a relatively poor and backward region. At age 18, Fan started work in the accounts department of a state-owned factory with a workforce of 1,500 in southwestern Shanxi.

In 1984, Fan's father attended a conference in coastal Shenzhen, Guangdong, an experimental area in the field of reform and opening up, and was offered work there. The following year Fan followed him, taking with him his life savings of 900 yuan. On June 16, 1985, as he was about to leave for Shenzhen, Fan wrote in his dairy, "Today is the turning point of my life."

Oddly enough, his new situation was similar to the one he had just left in Shanxi: his employer was a state-owned enterprise with a 1,500-workforce, and his work was accounting. But this time he set himself far higher goals.

"There is no need to be 100 percent proficient in all aspects of an assignment because professional personnel can help you through the details. Prior to 1988, I was the computer programmer for our company's finance department. As I knew practically nothing about computers, I took a three-month course at Shenzhen University. I would also ride my bicycle to the municipal police station, statistics bureau, and electronics tower to consult with their expertise. When a problem occurred and an English language dialogue box came up on the screen, all I could do was write it down and consult others. With their help, I made continuous amendments until reaching a satisfactory result. I also programmed break-even analyses and a break-even point that enabled us to produce a detailed and precise feasibility study." Fan sees this achievement as the start of his career.

In 1989, the fourth year of Fan's employment at the company, he was made vice director of the financial department, and in March 1991, he became financial director of its Hong Kong subsidiary. It was at this point that he began to travel regularly between Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

Fan is an energetic person with wide interests, and Shenzhen's open atmosphere presented to him a huge scope of possibility.

In 1988, Fan and his friends opened a small boutique in Shenzhen's city center. In 1993, he operated a seafood restaurant and began trading in IT. After accumulating sufficient capital and experience, he decided to enter a new field.

In May 1994, Fan entered the international special steel trade. His Hong Kong based company is exclusive agent for the famous French IMPHY iron and steel Group, on the Chinese mainland.

In March 2003, Fan moved to Canada. As his friends say, "This is Fan's style, from financial director to boutique and restaurant owner, to international trader, and finally, to Canada. He has wide interests, and is consistently unconventional. He never seems to go longer than a few years before making a major change in his life."

Fan's new business was importing Chinese made household appliances to Canada and the USA. In addition, he set up the Sino-Canadian Council for the Promotion of International Trade, a non-profit overseas Chinese community in Canada, and made himself its director. "The Sino-Canadian Council for the Promotion of International Trade's main responsibility is to promote Sino-Canadian friendly exchanges in various aspects," explains Fan.

Public-spirited

"I'd had help from many people, and felt it was time to do my bit for society." In 1995, as Fan's business steadily prospered, he focused his attention on public welfare.

Having lived in Shanxi for 19 years, Fan was deeply impressed with the honesty and hospitality of farmers he had known there. "On passing through the village at dinner time, warmhearted farmers would invite us to join them and urge us to eat dishes they would normally preserve for special occasions. " Once he began to make a profit, Fan decided it was time to pay back these kindnesses. He asked Shanxi Education Department for a list of 19 impoverished juveniles who had been forced to drop out of school, and sponsored their remaining years of middle school education. When one of these children showed symptoms of heart disease, Fan bought and sent to him medicine from Hong Kong. To express their thanks, the 19 children sent red dates to Fan every year, until he reprimanded them for wasting money on postage.

In 1996, in collaboration with the Xinhua News Agency, Fan invested one million yuan in an aid-the-poor program in Xifeng County, Guizhou Province called the Guizhou Xifeng Fumin Additive Co., Ltd. He presented each school in the county with a 25 inch imported color TV set.

In 1997, on a trip to Bei'an Tree Farm, Heilongjiang Province to inspect the investment environment, Fan donated three color TV sets to the farm.

Fan is a down-to-earth merchant, his behavior open and aboveboard. "A man can not live only for himself. I am a person with a sense of social responsibility," says Fan, resolutely.