China Resources Holdings Company Limited (), or simply China Resources, is a Chinese

state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...

conglomerate that owns a variety of businesses in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

and

Mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

. Some of its subsidiaries use the name in the form of the

initialism An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial letter of each word in all caps wi ...

CRC.

History

The company started as Liow & Company () in Hong Kong in 1938. Its original purpose was to raise funds and purchase supplies and equipment for the

Eighth Route Army The Eighth Route Army (), officially titled as the List of Army Groups of the National Revolutionary Army, 18th Group Army, was a Field army, group army nominally under the banner of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of Ch ...

and later

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It consists of four Military branch, services—People's Liberation Army Ground Force, Ground Force, People's ...

, then engaged in the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...

. It was renamed as China Resources Corporation () in 1948. In 1983, the company was incorporated as China Resources (Holdings) Company Limited ().

Operations

The company's main business focus is the export of mainland Chinese products (including energy) to Hong Kong. Its retail operations are organised under the China Resources Retail group, and include Chinese Arts & Crafts; it also runs a number of supermarkets in Hong Kong, originally under the CRC name, but now rebranded as

Vanguard The vanguard (sometimes abbreviated to van and also called the advance guard) is the leading part of an advancing military formation. It has a number of functions, including seeking out the enemy and securing ground in advance of the main force. ...

. It also owns

Ng Fung Hong Ng Fung Hong () is a Chinese company, owned by China Resources and listed in Hong Kong. It describes itself as the largest food distributor in Hong Kong, with interests in food distribution; food production, processing and trading; food retail and ...

, the monopoly meat importer into Hong Kong.

China Resources Cement China Resources Cement Holdings Limited (CRC), parented by China Resources, is a leading cement and concrete producer in Southern China. It is the largest NSP clinker and cement producer in Southern China by production capacity and the second la ...

is the largest NSP clinker and cement producer in Southern China by production capacity and the second largest concrete producer in China by sales volume.China Resources Cement Holdings Limited
/ref> It was established in 2003 and incorporated in

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located so ...

Rank

According to ''Fortune Magazine'', China Resources was ranked 70th on the 2022

Fortune Global 500 The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by '' Fortune'' magazine. Methodology Until 1989, it listed o ...

list, improved 73 places since 2014.

Investigation

In 2013 the firm and its chairman at the time,

Song Lin "Charley" Song Lin (; born February 3, 1963) is a former Chinese business executive. At the pinnacle of his career, he served as the board chairman and Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of China Resources, a state-owned conglomerate ...

, who also held high government rank, was reported to be under investigation regarding the purchase of coal mines in

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

province for 9.9 billion RMB that did not produce any coal for several years after the acquisition. There are substantial reserves of coal in the mines, but exploiting them requires substantial investments. Meanwhile, coal from newly opened strip mines in Mongolia had depressed the market. The deal raised questions about the leverage that large, state-owned firms had to borrow money at low interest for projects of dubious profitability and about where the money went and why.

Notes and references

External links