Miao Hangen

He started from a village factory rather than family wealth

Miao's early circumstances were far removed from the industrial fortune he later controlled. A Fortune China profile says he failed the university entrance examination, went to work in a village-run silk factory and initially earned about 30 yuan a month. ^[3]

In 1992 village leaders financed a small sand-washing and dyeing plant and appointed Miao to run it. Company history describes Shenghong as beginning that year in downstream textile printing and dyeing, with the early operation consisting of a modest local factory rather than an inherited private conglomerate. ^[2][3]

Miao expanded first through printing and dyeing, including acquisitions of other local factories, and then moved upstream into chemical fiber. Shenghong says the group entered chemical fiber in 2003 and deliberately focused on differentiated and high-end products rather than conventional commodity output. ^[2]

Successive moves upstream created a global industrial group

Shenghong later moved from textiles into petrochemicals, refining, new energy and advanced materials. The company now describes an integrated industrial chain spanning oil, coal and gas inputs, petrochemical products, specialty materials and high-end textiles. ^[2]

Forbes identifies Miao as chairman of listed Eastern Shenghong and treats textiles and petrochemicals as the source of his self-created wealth. The reviewed record combines a low-income rural industrial start with decades of company building, acquisitions and technological expansion on a scale far beyond the village factory he first managed. ^[1][3][2]