Uniquely HK

Brand Story

China Resources: Power of two

The giant Mainland Chinese Company tells the story of China-Hong Kong integration at its best. The MIXC Shenzhen.

China Resources: the name itself is auspicious enough, as denoted by its Chinese characters Hua Ruan, meaning “The Great land of China, abundantly endowed”. Founded in Hong Kong in 1938 as Liow and Company, it began as a small supplies provisioning business established by no less than Zhou Enlai, then prime minister of the People’s Republic of China. The company procured supplies during World War II, and since then has grown to be one of the largest conglomerates in China.

A household name in both Hong Kong and China, China Resources, through its investment company, China Resources (Holding) Limited, oversees seven large operating companies, five of which are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Three of them are constituent stocks of the Hang Seng Index: China Resources Enterprises Limited, China Resources Power Holdings, and China Resources Land Limited.

Collectively, in 2013, China Resources realized a total turnover of HK$507.8 billion, an operating profit of HK$50.1 billion, and a net profit of HK$15.6 billion. The group employs over 420,000 people, evidence of the company’s tremendous growth in the last 30 years. How did China Resources manage to accomplish all that in such a short interval?

After being renamed China Resources in 1948, operating out of Hong Kong, the company in the early 1950s took on the important role as China’s general trading agent for Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asia both in imports and exports. This provided the company invaluable and unique international experience and exposure from the 1950s until the late 1970s when China opened up its economy. In the early 1980s, China Resources made a strategic decision to evolve from a trading company into a business and asset operating company not just in Hong Kong but in Mainland China as well in order to take advantage of its unique position and China’s spectacular growth.

Today, China Resources is recognized by consumers in the region for many of its retail businesses operated through the China Resources Vanguard Group. The latter includes supermarket/convenience store brands such as Vanguard, Vingo, and Ole. The group’s specialty stores embrbace China Arts and Crafts, CRCare (a medicinal and health retail outlet), and Pacific Coffee in Hong Kong which it acquired in 2006. Through its beer subsidiary, CR Brewery, the company also owns Snow Beer, the leading beer brand in China by sales volume.

China Resources also makes its mark in property development, specializing in high end mixed-use development projects. Its signature project in Shenzhen, Wan Xiang Cheng, is considered the city’s landmark project.

As one of the earliest and most experienced China backed companies operating in Hong Kong, China Resources is generally considered one of the best run China State Owned Enterprises, a distinction attributed largely to the company’s exposure to international best practices from its Hong Kong operations. China Resources’ success is also a perfect example of the role Hong Kong can play as an international finance centre towards China’s economic and enterprise development.

As China Resources looks to develop a modern world-class international enterprise, the sky is the limit, and its newly renovated headquarters in Hong Kong is a fitting tribute to the transformation that China Resources has gone through and will continue to do in its quest to achieve its lofty goals.