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Private firms stand up out of quake debris
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-11 14:11 In downtown Deyang, shopkeepers kept doing business or hawking to provide fresh meat, fruits, vegetables and eggs for survivors in an intermittent way, with exposure to risks of more aftershocks. In the fourth week after the quake, private businesses from outside Sichuan began to offer jobs to survivors. Two processing enterprises from Shishi in the eastern Fujian Province, offered 100 jobs for survivors from Sichuan, even for a whole family of three, and took the responsibility to find schools for the employees' children. Chen Anpei, head of the Mianyang private business association, said China's private businesses were growing with the diligent entrepreneur spirit and maturing mentality of citizenship. Besides those "petty bosses," many larger disaster-stricken private businesses in Sichuan had spared no efforts to participate in the quake relief. A tourism company donated more than 4.05 million yuan in cash and goods after losing more than 500 million yuan in the quake. New Hope Group, a leading feedstuff supplier, shipped its first offer of hams, drinking water, biscuits and milk to the quake-battered areas in the wee hours of the second day upon the catastrophe. Private business owners in eye of public China's per-capita GDP has reached $2,000, with regional disparity and gaps between the rich and the poor and between different trades widening. The general public began to pay more attention to the legitimacy of private wealth accumulation and to the behaviour of the rich. There was also a dark side to the post-quake days. Some private businesses took the chance to jack up prices and some others sold shoddy goods and counterfeits. Wang Guobin said China had a tradition to consider "petty bosses" only caring about their own interests and doing little for public benefit. But after the quake, most of the private businesses have been better aware of their social accountability, with their creditworthiness improving. Chen Anpei, who slept for only five hours in each day after the quake, said the quake was a tribulation through which China's private businesses would become stronger. "Our tears have dried. We must stand up out of the disaster and start up business again." He suggested the central government encourage disaster-stricken private businesses to restore operation with certain preferential policies. He said this would somehow alleviate the government's burden in quake relief. (For more biz stories, please visit Industries)
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