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Chinese NGO fixes eyes while helping state-owned companies build community ties overseas
- Hong Kong-based GX Foundation sends medical teams to perform cataract surgery in developing countries from Djibouti to Laos
- China’s SOEs step in to provide crucial support for patients, which generates goodwill among locals, says chief executive Emily Chan Ying-yang
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The Chinese humanitarian group GX Foundation was set up to provide cataract surgery, but it has also helped promote the image of China and its state-owned enterprises across the developing world.
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The Hong Kong-based foundation has sent Chinese medical practitioners to perform more than 3,600 eye operations, helping to clear the backlog of cataract patients in countries including Cambodia, Laos, Mauritania and Senegal.
The non-governmental organisation (NGO) has also performed hundreds of operations in Djibouti, where the Chinese presence has increased substantially since 2016 when Beijing built a military base in the East African country.
Earlier this year, a subsidiary of the state-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) drove 20 of the foundation’s patients – members of the Afar tribe – from their remote community to a hospital in Djibouti’s capital for an examination.
It was an important community outreach activity for CCCC, which owns a sodium bromide project at Lake Assal – the saline crater lake where the Afar tribe members live.
“It is always in the interest of the Chinese companies who are investing there to have a good relationship with the community,” said GX Foundation CEO Emily Chan Ying-yang.
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