China's top 20

WORLD INNOVATION:China has become the world's factory, where half the industrial goods on earth are made, but it is not known for being a centre of innovation. That may be about to change

FOLLOWING ON FROM JAPAN IN the 1950s and 1960s, China's reputation today is for low-cost manufacturing of goods designed elsewhere. The government's thinking however, is focused on what comes next, and innovation is becoming a national obsession.

Held back for years by old-style Communism, "socialism with Chinese characteristics" has produced a new breed of innovators who are pushing the envelope in the way they do business, in the ideas they are generating and in transforming the economy from a centrally planned monolith into something far more progressive.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Robin Li

The founder, chairman and chief executive of the company known as China's Google, Baidu's Robin Li typifies the new breed of young, confident entrepreneurs emerging in the technology industry. He founded Baidu in 1999 after working in search engine technology for a number of firms, including the search engine pioneer Infoseek and the Wall Street Journal.

William Ding

Another giant of the Internet business in China, William Ding set up NetEase in 1997 and is generally seen as one of the major figures behind establishing China's growing online community, building the company from a small private firm with less than 20 employees into a major internet technology company listed on the NASDAQ with over 1,500 staff.

Liu Chuanzhi

Known as the "godfather of Chinese IT", Liu Chuanzhi was one of the founders of Lenovo, China's only global brand and probably its most important company. After his education was cut short by the Cultural Revolution, he came to capitalism late, setting up the company (then called Legend) in 1984 as a 40-year old engineer at the Computer Sciences Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Lenovo is now the world's third-largest manufacturer of personal computers.

INDUSTRIAL

Zhang Yin

China is not known for being environmentally progressive, but Zhang Yin, the "queen of wastepaper" has made big business out of being green. Her company, Nine Dragons Paper, ships waste paper from the US and Europe to China and recycles cardboard, which is then used for boxes that wrap electronics and toys that are shipped back across the oceans to Western countries. Zhang is the first woman to ever top the annual China Rich List compiled by Hurun Report.

Zhang Ruimin

Domestic appliances giant Haier is mired in a difficult restructuring, and is finding it difficult to beat aggressive marketers from abroad, which means Zhang Ruimin's fortunes may not be shining as brightly as they once did, but he remains an icon for China's growth as a high-class manufacturing centre. His innovation was to take Chinese state-owned enterprises and make them behave like regular companies, something for which he remains a revered figure in China.

CONGLOMERATES

Rong Zhijian

Known in Mandarin as Rong Zhijian, but more commonly known as Larry Yung, he is formerly the richest man in China and is the head of the Hong Kong-listed conglomerate Citic, which includes aviation, civil infrastructure, real estate, telecoms and online games technology in its portfolio. He qualifies as an innovator for the way he has diversified this company into a huge Asian conglomerate.

Guo Guangchang

This philosophy graduate from Fudan university in Shanghai is president and chief executive of the Fosun Group, China's largest privately-owned conglomerate. He started the Fosun Group with three other graduates from universities in Shanghai and the group's core businesses include pharmaceutical, property, steel, retailing, financial service and investments in strategic industries.

APPAREL

Li Ning

In his 19 years as a top gymnast, Li Ning (44) won 106 medals - at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics he won three gold, two silver and one bronze medals, the top medal-winner of the Games.

Since 1988, he has become the first Chinese sports star to make the transition to the commercial world, setting up Li-Ning Ltd, a sneaker and sportswear apparel maker which has signed sponsorship deals with NBA star Damon Jones and the Argentine basketball team. Turnover last year was €300 million and earnings were around €30 million.

REAL ESTATE

Xu Rongmao

Xu Rongmao is chairman of the Shimao Group, a former textile company worker turned securities trader turned factory owner who has become one of China's richest and most successful property developers. He's currently building up the domestic tourist industry by getting involved in resort and hotel investments.

Pan Shiyi

Pan Shiyi is chairman and chief executive, with his wife Zhang Xin, of the real estate company Soho China, and is fast becoming known as the landlord of Beijing's emerging central business district. His daring approach to choosing top-notch foreign and Chinese architects to build his projects makes him a true innovator in this area.

Zhu Mengyi

A former bureaucrat, Zhu Mengyi is head of the nationwide property development group Hopson, which has a Hong Kong listing, and which runs successful projects in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Starting life as a foreman in a village in Guangdong province, Mengyi has built up the property business in tandem with a family contracting business.

FOOD AND BEVERAGE

Zhu Yicai

Food is the main topic of conversation in China, and Zhu Yicai has built an empire on this national obsession. He is currently building Asia's largest meat processing plant in his hometown in Anhui and among the products he offers are prosciutto ham - he reckons China's new rich will buy the dried meat in droves, securing even better profits for Yurun group, the firm he founded and chairs.

Zong Qinghou

Zong Qinghou's Wahaha is one of the most innovative food and beverage companies in China, most famous for taking on Coca-Cola and Pepsi with its "Feichang" ("exceptional") brand and building up impressive market share. Wahaha's founder, Zong Qinghou spent 17 years on Zhejiang state farms under Mao's drive to bring intellectuals to the countryside but he eventually returned to the city of Hangzhou where he took up marketing, before borrowing the money needed to set up Wahaha.

Li Wei

A trained journalist, Li Wei started his life working for the government, but decided that food was the future and set up Synear Food Holding, which is now one of China's top producers of frozen food. As an official supplier to the Beijing Summer Olympics next year, Li's stock is expected to rise.

Zhang Lan

Zhang Lan is founder of the chain of Sichuan restaurants known as South Beauty group. It is one of the most recognisable food and beverage brands in China, with turnover of around €40 million in 2005, and Zhang is poised to take her company public on the Hong Kong stock exchange within two years. South Beauty will also be catering for the athletes, the government, the media and the guests during the Games.

ENERGY

Shi Zhengrong

Physicist Shi Zhengrong learned about solar power in Australia during the 1990s, and in 2001 he set up Suntech Power Holdings and went public on the New York Stock Exchange four years later, making him one of China's 10 richest men. The company employs 3,500 workers at four sites in China, producing solar power equipment.

ANIMAL FEED DISTRIBUTION

Liu Yongxing

This is a true tale of early capitalism - a young Liu Yongxing (now president of East Hope Group), and his three brothers sold their watches and their bikes in 1982 to raise 1,000RMB (€100) to start up their business, raising quails and chickens. That small operation is now an animal feeds business, specialising particularly in pig feed. It has become China's largest private company, with revenues of more than €1 billion a year, plus a growing sideline in property.

RETAIL

Zhang Jindong

Suning Appliance is China's number two electrical appliance chain and is expecting its current tally of 351 shops to rise to 1,000 stores China by 2010. The group reported around €70 million in net profit in 2006, selling TVs, mobile phones and computers. Where Zhang has been at his most innovative has been in the way he has managed the company's rapid expansion and also in the way he has not been shy about turning to the financial markets for capital to fund that expansion.

Huang Guangyu

According to Forbes magazine Huang Guangyu (some times spelt Wong Kwong Yu), the founder of Gome Appliances, is mainland China's richest man with a net worth of €1.8 billion. His recipe for success has been simple, offering household goods at Gome, all eagerly bought by China's growing middle class who are kitting out their new homes, but his clever manoeuvring on the stock market has also given his fortunes a lift.

FRAGRANCE AND FLAVOURINGS

Chu Lam Yiu

After making her fortune through the foundation of a fragrance and flavourings business 10 years ago, Chu Lam Yiu then added to her pile by taking a large part of the company, now called Huabao International Holdings, public in August last year.