News

Corporate leadership throughout the global financial crisis

By Ren Jianxin (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-05-11 16:39

Editor's note: Ren Jianxin, president of the China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina), divulges his perspective on the current ongoing financial crisis and the need for corporate leadership during the economic turmoil on the 5th anniversary of the founding of the company.

May 9 marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of ChemChina. The past five years have been an extraordinary time for the company. It has seen it enjoy a rollercoaster ride of development and consolidation.

During these five years the total assets of ChemChina increased from 22.96 billion yuan to 156.9 billion yuan while its prime operating income jumped from 15.2 billion yuan to 122.6 billion yuan, rising by 5.9 and 7 times respectively since its founding. Meanwhile, the total profits of the company have grown almost a dozenfold.

To date, ChemChina is ranked 19th amongst the top 100 chemical companies in the world, 28th among the top 500 Chinese companies and No 1 among all the Chinese producers of chemical raw materials and chemical products.

The company was recently recognized by the senior officials of the Chinese Central Government to "have achieved outstanding leap-forward development" - high praise indeed, and something we should all be proud of.

However, the past five years have been far from plain sailing for ChemChina. They were years in which we needed to surmount numerous difficulties and scale record-breaking heights.

During these years, we were focused on strengthening our core businesses and raised 32.3 billion yuan to complete 85 key construction projects.

During this time, we adhered to the strategy of internationalization and successfully acquired four overseas businesses, including Adisseo in France, Qenos in Australia and the organic silicone business of Rhodia in France. We then integrated the acquired businesses with the company's existing businesses in advanced chemical materials. We additionally introduced, into BlueStar, strategic investment from US-based Blackstone through a process of overall restructuring.

During the last five years we persevered in scientific and technological innovation and mobilized significant resources to achieve breakthroughs in a number of projects. These included pioneering projects under the state's "11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10), the 863 Projects, key specialized R&D programs and other projects in energy conservation and emission reduction. More than 600 research findings passed authentication checks and 148 won provincial or state-level awards for scientific progression. To date, ChemChina is ranked the 4th among all the central state-owned enterprises in terms of the number of patents owned.

While experiencing rapid expansion and development, we also come across difficulties and have to face new and tougher challenges.

For instance, compared to global leading chemical producers, who generally have no more than four business units, ChemChina, in spite of its painstaking restructuring efforts, still has six business units, which makes us obviously over-stretched.