Guo Guangchang’s New Year Speech: What is the value of Fosun?

Dear Fosun colleagues,

The end of the year should be a time of “emptiness and quietness”, but I spent two-thirds of my time on business in the last month of 2020. Everything has changed after one year of the pandemic. I now think it is a very fortunate thing to be able to “be on the road”.

First of all, I would still like to say thank you. From the outbreak of the pandemic at the beginning of the year to normal prevention and control, the reason our society has been able to continue operating normally and the reason our economy can recover rapidly is because every organization and every individual has been responsible and doing their duty. Therefore, I would like to express my gratitude to all Fosun colleagues and wish you a happy new year!

It has been an extraordinary year for Fosun. Faced with the huge impact of the pandemic on society, enterprises, and the market, we quickly entered a wartime state. From the end of January when we started the global material transportation, to March and April when production and work were resumed, and then to the end of the year when we promoted the implementation of Fosun COVID-19 vaccine, it can be said that every Fosun colleague has been a soldier and has fought a hard battle in their respective posts. Needless to say, regarding the challenges and the hard work this year, we are also deeply honored to be able to make contributions to pandemic prevention and control and human health in this once-in-a-century unprecedented war between humans and a virus. As enterprise workers, we are very proud.

At the same time, our participation in anti-pandemic efforts this year has given me a new perspective on the strategy and value of Fosun. I am becoming more confident in our ability to overcome the challenges of the pandemic. Over the years, Fosun has done a lot of right things:

The first one is globalization.

The accumulation of global industrial resources has laid a foundation for Fosun’s anti-pandemic work.  We embarked on the road to globalization in 2007. In the more than ten years after that, we have carried out in-depth industrial participations in more than 20 countries around the world. It is precisely because of this that we are able to arrange a large quantity of supplies and materials to support domestic and global anti-pandemic efforts in a short time.

I remember that on January 23, Wuhan was closed to the outside. Facing the pandemic, we urgently launched a global supply allocation operation on the morning of the Lunar New Year’s Day. In the first 10 hours, our teams around the world quickly locked in more than 240,000 protective suits and more than 200,000 medical masks. The first batch of 50,000 protective suits from Germany was delivered to China in just three days and used to supported domestic pandemic prevention and control as quickly as possible, solving the urgent needs of several provinces and cities, including Wuhan, Chongqing, and Shanghai. For a whole month after that, Fosun colleagues all over the world worked around the clock to bring back more masks and protective suits to China.

In March, the pandemic situation deteriorated overseas, and we fulfilled our previous commitment to our overseas partners by purchasing a large quantity of domestic supplies to support areas hit by the pandemic around the world.  This anti-pandemic campaign taught us that the globalization capability of enterprises is also part of the globalization capability of a country. With the implementation of the RCEP and China-EU investment agreement, Fosun’s globalization capability will have more room for development, and will contribute more power to the “Double circulation” economy in the future.

The second one is an innovation driven strategy.

Since its incorporation, Fosun has been aiming at the forefront of global science and technology in the medical and health fields, continuously promoting innovation and R&D, and gradually forming the core competitiveness of the enterprise.  In late January, the pandemic became increasingly severe. We have leading pharmaceutical enterprises in China, and we have the responsibility and mission to find solutions to end the pandemic, as well as create more possibilities to overcome COVID-19. Thanks to our cooperation with German BioNTech on the treatment of cancer with mRNA technology, after careful discussions, the Fosun Pharma team determined that mRNA technology was not only an important means to conquer cancer in the future, but could also be used to rapidly develop COVID-19 vaccines for mass production. So, in early March, Fosun Pharma quickly signed an agreement with BioNTech to jointly develop COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.

From the bottom of my heart, I hope that the pandemic will end before the vaccine is successfully developed, just like SARS in 2003.  As the pandemic spreads throughout the world, I can only hope that the vaccine will be successfully developed as soon as possible to truly end the pandemic. But the difficulties are obvious. I remember that Dr Hui Aimin (President of Fosun Pharma Global R&D Center) once told me that even in the clinical phase III, the success rate of vaccine R&D is only 10%. To me, no matter how many human and financial resources are invested, for the sake of human health, we should give 120% of our efforts even if there is only 1% hope for the success of vaccine research and development.

Fortunately, the final analysis data of overseas phase III clinical trials showed that the effective rate of this COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was 95%, and no serious adverse reactions were reported.  At present, the vaccine has been approved for emergency use in the United Kingdom, Canada, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Mexico, Singapore and other countries, and has been approved for conditional marketing in the European Union. Millions of people have been vaccinated overseas, and it is quite safe as a whole. We are also vigorously promoting the clinical trial and marketing process of the vaccine in China.

The third one is that Fosun adheres to its initial pioneering spirit.

I remember that when Fosun was founded, we made “Self-improvement, Teamwork, Performance, Contribution to Society” our value. After 28 years of development, Fosun has grown into a global enterprise rooted in China, and the growth of its capacity makes us more deeply aware of Fosun’s social responsibility. The challenges of the pandemic this year have made us realize that the fate of enterprises is closely linked with that of our family and country. Enterprises have always been an important part of the country and society.

Let us consider our initial intention again. What is the value of Fosun? I think the Fosun’s value does not lie in how much money it makes, but what it does and creates for customers, society, the country, and for the happiness of families around the world. Today, Fosun is an enterprise that creates jobs for employees, contribute taxes to finance, and creates wealth for society; we have not neglected to put our initial intention of “Performance, Contribution to Society” into practice. We should increase our investment in the unknown areas of human beings, take more responsibilities for the world and help everyone live better lives.

Looking ahead to 2021, the pandemic is not over, but I believe the most difficult phase has passed.  In the future, we should be more determined to do the right things, the difficult things, and the things that need time to accumulate. We should believe in our value as enterprise workers, especially strengthen Fosun’s global capacity building, increase our investment in science and innovation, stick to our initial intention, and help more families become healthier, happier and wealthier!

I wish everyone a happy New Year!

In 2021, the difficulty will end, the best will come, and Fosun will shine!

Guangchang

December 31, 2020                                            in Shanghai BFC