Billionaire ‘Textile King’ Tang Hsiang-chien earned Beijing’s respect by investing in far-flung Xinjiang and other provinces as soon as China opened up
- But Tang Hsiang-chien’s son, former chief secretary Henry Tang, says getting clothes shipped overseas still had its challenges
The far-flung Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region seemed an improbable place for Hong Kong entrepreneurs to invest as the Chinese economy opened up in the late 1970s.
But Hong Kong “Textile King” Tang Hsiang-chien took a gamble in 1979 and set up a woollen textile factory in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.
It became a joint venture company the following year, making Xinjiang Tian Shan Wool Tex the first of its kind in China. It produced cashmere and knitted sweaters for overseas markets, including the United States.
Tang’s son and Hong Kong’s former chief secretary, Henry Tang Ying-yen, said: “We sent sweaters from Urumqi to Kwai Chung Container Terminal via Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, and on to Shenzhen by train, after which the goods were shipped to the US.”
Several times in the 1980s the sweaters were bumped off the trains because officials took over the cargo space to transport perishable Hami melons, a Xinjiang speciality, to other provinces.