The Tenth Xinhua Summit was held on 7 January in Nanjing. A key part of the summit was the announcement of the 2016 Xinhua Daily Annual Economic Cover award, one of which went to the Chairman of Sanpower Group Yuan Yafei. Award winners also included Zhou Haijiang, president of Hodo Group, Xu Jingren, the chairman of Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group and Cui Genliang, chairman of the board of Hengtong Group Cui Genliang, among others.

It is reported that the Xinhua Summit was the tenth to be held by Xinhua Daily Media Group. It has become the largest and most exclusive forum among economists and entrepreneurs in Jiangsu as well as one of the most economically influential events in the province. This year was the first time the economic cover of the year was chosen and represented a breakthrough for the summit as well providing its biggest highlight. The award aims to honour the leading figures in the development of Jiangsu’s economy and highlight their thinking, creativity and leadership.

Jean Tirole, winner of 2014 Nobel Prize for economics and the father of game theory was invited to the summit. He has previously worked as a senior Asia-Pacific economist at Merrill Lynch and as a consultant for the World Bank and he is now a professor of economics and finance at the China Europe International Business School. Xu Xiaonian and many other well-known experts, scholars and business leaders from China and abroad attended the summit to deliver speeches which included in-depth analysis of future economic trends and countermeasures and accurate assessments of new situations and changes in the domestic and foreign growth environment.

Yuan Yafei has led Sanpower Group to continually change and grow in the 24 years since its founding. The Group has become a large privately-held group spanning consumption, health and finance. Since 2014, Yuan Yafei’s concept of “the future defines the future” has provided the backdrop for Sanpower Group’s multinational going global strategy and multiple overseas M&A activities. Synergy between foreign and domestic industries of Sanpower has also come into being in 2016: the American shop Brookstone and the British department store House of Fraser opened in China one after the other and Israeli Natali’s B2C telemedicine project in Changzhou began trial operation. Sanpower has set the pace for industry innovation and reform and achieved remarkable results.

In 2016, Yuan Yafei also won other awards, including Most Influential People in the 15 Years of China’s Accession to WTO, 2016 Responsible Person, 2016 CCFA Person of the Year and 2016 Persons Promoting the Internationalization of Jiangsu’s Business.

It is said that the 2016 Xinhua Daily Annual Economic Cover award was decided after three months of open nominations, careful assessments and surveys and evidence-based evaluation. The final winners were chosen from more than a hundred entrepreneurs who have made outstanding contributions to the economic development of Jiangsu over the past year. These winners are those that perfectly combine thinking, creativity and leadership and represent the future economic power of Jiangsu and even China.