China's largest market for native products is being built in Shenzhen's Pinghu Township. Occupying an area of about 70,000 square meters, the market is invested by a Tibetan woman called Wangyu Jiga.

Wangyu first came to Shenzhen in 1985 when she was 35 years old, at that time she was a governmental worker from the western Gansu Province. Compared with a monthly salary of less than 100 yuan (US$12) she earned then, today, after her 18 years' struggle in Shenzhen, she has personal assets worth more than 100 million yuan.

The market, now being constructed, represents an investment of 600 million yuan (US$72.58 million), and will be put into operation late this year.

Wangyu was born in a Tibetan family in Gansu Province in western China. Her father was one of the first Tibetans to start a business and created eight firsts in Gansu -- he started the province's first cinema, first winery, first ink factory and first soap factory, among others. Influenced by her father, Wang developed a business-oriented mind.

Wangyu arrived in Shenzhen for the first time on a business trip. She said she was immediately shocked by what she saw after she set foot on the soil of Shenzhen, which was then in its early days of development. She saw construction sites and people busy going about their work everywhere. She felt a dynamism that she had never felt at her hometown. What moved her most is a slogan hung almost everywhere in Shenzhen: "Time is money. Efficiency is life."

She got another shock when she went shopping in a supermarket. She saw an herbal medicine called Chinese angelica that was sold at HK$436 (US$55.90) a kilo. Her hometown is native to this herb but there it was sold only 5 yuan (US$0.6) a kilo.

"I couldn't help thinking of the poorly dressed little girls I saw in the rural areas in Gansu who worked hard in the icy weather digging for the herb and then waited for long at the roadside to sell it to passers-by for very little money," she said. "I also thought of the overstocked native products of various types including Chinese angelica in the warehouses in my hometown. Some of them had gone moldy."

The contrast that flashed in her mind gave her the determination to do something to help improve the conditions of the people in her hometown. And the contrast also helped her find a business opportunity. She decided to introduce the products native to the west to all of China and the world using Shenzhen as an entrepot.

Wangyu started out with 400 yuan (US$48.38) renting a room in Shenzhen from a local resident. She set up a company in this room, which she also ran as a hostel for guests from her home province.

Many of the guests were her business partners. She provided her partners with information and market, and bought from them whatever she needed from western China. She also sold to them the things available at Hong Kong and South China, yet not in western China. These initial dealings helped her make her first fortune.

Then she organized a symposium between businesspeople from Gansu Province and those from Hong Kong and foreign countries. For many Gansu businesspeople, this was their first contact with the overseas business world. Many Hong Kong and foreign businessmen also got their first knowledge of Gansu at this event.

Immediately after the symposium she opened a fair in Shenzhen for Gansu products. More than 100 counties from the province sent their representatives and products to the fair. Many Gansu people came to understand from the exchanges at the fair that although they had good products, the underdeveloped processing and packing ability in their areas had made them lag behind in the market.

"This fair has a great mentality impact to many Gansu business people. They got a lot of new ideas from this experience. And they also saw a much bigger market in front of them," Wangyu recalled.

Wangyu herself also found a bigger market. That was why she organized a similar fair the next year. She introduced more than 300 types of products from Gansu at the fair and ended up with a transaction of more than 10 million yuan (US$1.21 million).

At the same time Wangyu launched two more companies in Shenzhen, one for processing of agriculture products and the other for processing of Chinese herbs.

She was praised as a brave and creative entrepreneur by the top leader of Gansu Province when he visited Wangyu's company in Shenzhen in 1988.

Wangyu often traveled back to Gansu to help the farmers improve their farming method. When she learned that a Japanese turnip had a growth period of only 55-60 days, she introduced it to the Gansu farmers. The farmers, however, were bound by their traditional farming knowledge and reluctant to try to grow the turnip. Therefore, Wangyu offered to pay the farmers in advance and encouraged them to try. "As a result, the farmers tripled their income by growing this turnip. And my company also benefited from the new product," Wangyu said.

Having lived for many years in the Tibetan communities, Wangyu knew quite a bit about yaks. She knew yak milk was better than human milk and that yak meat tasted good, and had high nutrition value. She also knew that yak blood and organs had high medical value.

So in May 2001, she organized a 16-person study tour to Gansu and Qinghai and then launched a seminar about yak's economic value, which the country's top experts participated in. After that she wrote to the central government to suggest for a value-added yak processing industry.

Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier and the then vice premier, read Wangyu's report and asked relevant departments such as the Ministry of Agriculture to help develop the industry. As a result, Wangyu helped a company in Gansu get a loan of 300 million yuan (US$36.29 million) to develop various yak products.

"Now several production lines are being installed at that company. With them put into operation, many Tibetan people in the west will be benefited more by the yaks they raise," Wangyu said.

Many farmers in the west have become well off thanks to Wangyu's assistance. Some Tibetan farmers there called her the "messenger of God."

After traveling between western China and Shenzhen for many years, Wangyu decided she would be able to work more efficiently if she built a big market in Shenzhen for the products from the west. "The market will be a platform for old friends to meet and for people to make news friends. It'll be a trading center," she said.

The market will include 1,100 stores. It is also affiliated with several processing and packaging factories. "Hundreds of tons of products will be traded daily in this market," predicted Wangyu.

Wangyu was responsible for another landmark event, organizing China's first fair for products of the minority ethnic groups in Shenzhen in 2001. Something rare about the event was that this national activity was designed and organized by a private company -- Wangyu's company.

The four-day event attracted more than 2,000 corporate participants from all across China and 150,000 visitors and saw total transactions of more than 50 billion yuan (US$6.05 billion).

"The market that I am building is actually continuation of the fair. With it finished and put into operation, it will become a fair for ethnic products whose curtain will never fall," she concluded.

(Shenzhen Daily August 4, 2003)