E-Malt.com News article: 1852

The chairman of China's biggest beer hops company moved his family abroad, drained his bank accounts and dropped from sight, official reports say, The Canadian Press posted November 24. But in a country where thousands of officials have fled, leaving behind ruined companies and angry shareholders, the sudden disappearance of Aikelamu Aishayoufu is getting unusual attention. It provoked a vigorous response from authorities in Xinjiang, a poor region of China's far west that is inhabited by restive Muslim minorities.

Top Communist Party officials in Xinjiang met in the regional capital, Urumqi, last week and urged creditors and suppliers of Xinjiang Hops Co., now under investigation by securities regulators, to support Aishayoufu's troubled flagship enterprise and keep it afloat. The tycoon, one of the wealthiest members of the Muslim Uighur minority, left behind more than one billion yuan, or $120 million US, in previously unknown loan guarantees and other financial liabilities, his company says.

Top Xinjiang leader Wang Lequan, the autonomous region's Communist Party secretary, and Ismail Tiliwaldi, its chairman, accused him of causing huge losses to the company and its shareholders and of "totally irresponsible behaviour." The unusually public condemnation followed reports that Aman Haj, Xinjiang's vice-chairman, was being investigated by the Communist Party's anti-graft watchdog.

It is unclear whether the tycoon's disappearance was linked in any way to that probe - local officials contacted by phone refused to comment. Calls to all available numbers for Xinjiang Hops, a company listed on the Shanghai stock exchange that deals in hops and barley trading, brewery, beverage and real estate businesses, went unanswered.

A report by the official China News Service said Xinjiang authorities had set up an "emergency leading group" and were conducting their own investigations.

As the world's second-biggest beer producer, China has nurtured its domestic hops industry over the last two decades, becoming the third-biggest grower. Xinjiang Hops is reportedly China's biggest supplier of domestically grown hops used by Chinese brewers. Hops growing is a costly and labor-intensive industry, and Xinjiang's growers face tough competition from newer farms in nearby Gansu and Ningxia provinces, whose younger hops vines tend to be more productive.


01 December, 2003