Pioneer with eye to future

WHEN Shaul Eisenberg made his way slowly and painfully to Shanghai, Japan and Korea as a penniless refugee from Nazi Germany, it gave him not only a love of the Far East but a zest for using over and over again the specialised skills he developed to survive in those testing times.

Today, he is Israel's richest and most successful entrepreneur and the proud owner of some of the nation's largest and most profitable industries.

But perhaps the jewel in the crown remains United Development Inc (UDI), a world-wide network of companies built from its 40 years as a player in the industrialisation of Japan, Korea, the Philippines and now, above all, China.

As Avishai Hamburger, general manager of UDI's Hong Kong office, puts it: 'Shaul Eisenberg is a pioneer. But he's a pioneer with a long-term view. He's in China with projects that will take 15 years to complete.

'Many of the people we think of as pioneers are people of the past. He's in his seventies. But he's still active, a man with an eye to the future.' How does that pioneering spirit show? One clue is the size of UDI's operations in China. A company with 15 offices around the country and which, in 10 years has been involved in more than 280 projects from power stations to the glass industry, from phosphate extraction to consumer goods, telecommunications and vegetable oils, has already shown it is not content to follow where others lead.

UDI did not wait for Israel's 1992 establishment of diplomatic relations to commit itself to China's development.

Mr Eisenberg is simply the biggest private player among foreign investors and has been so before many others.