Tian Huiyu: Looking to the future

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Fifty years of Asia The profiles: 23 of the biggest names in Asia Zafrul Aziz Laura Cha Wei Sun Christianson Piyush Gupta Uday Kotak Reuben Lai Boon Chye Loh Agus Martowardojo Raghuram Rajan Jahja Setiaatmadja Weijian Shan Alan Smith Teh Hong Piow Sun Yu Nestor Tan Wee Ee Cheong Kartika Wirjoatmodjo Peter Wong Daniel Wu Wu Wei Joseph Yam Zeti Akhtar Aziz

Among the big Chinese lenders, China Merchants Bank is a relative newcomer, founded in 1987 in Shenzhen. The city – although it wasn’t much of a city back then – was China’s first special economic zone, promoted by Deng Xiaoping as an experimental place to try out elements of market capitalism.

“So we have that in our blood,” says Tian Huiyu, president of China Merchants Bank (CMB).

That, 1987, was also the year he started out in banking, initially at China Construction Bank.

“I’m very lucky,” he says. “My whole career of 32 years has been in the same period when the Chinese economy has been growing.