The colourful mainland and Hong Kong history of graft-hit China Resources
Former chairman is being probed for discipline and law violations, but given its history huge company is likely to survive any scandal
China Resources (Holdings), which has been under the media spotlight in the past week over news that its former chairman has been probed by the Communist Party's graft watchdog for corruption, has a past that is anything but ordinary.
The company, formerly known as Liow & Co, was established in Hong Kong in 1938 by Yang Lianan, with the backing of Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun - two of the Communist Party's eight elders. Its original purpose was to use funds raised from the public to procure material to support Chinese resistance to the Japanese in the second world war.
The company was renamed China Resources in 1948. In 1952, it became the principal agent of the mainland's import and export trade through Hong Kong, and organised the first Canton Fair in 1957.
It was under the control of the mainland's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation until 1999, when it was put under the direct administration of the central government.
Its Ng Fung Hong unit, set up in 1962, was the main supplier of live and frozen meat from the mainland to Hong Kong. Today, it still has a monopoly on fresh beef distribution in Hong Kong.
In the early 1970s, China Resources sent petroleum products from the mainland to Hong Kong during the global oil crisis.
