The founder of Midea Group donates nearly $1 billion to promote projects

A Chinese billionaire businessman plans to donate 6 billion yuan ($892.7 million) to support charities and help combat poverty by promoting nationwide projects.

He Xiang jian, founder of Midea Group, will place 100 million privately owned shares, worth about 4 billion yuan, into a fund, as well as 2 billion yuan in cash.

“The donation plan will meet charity demands from all sectors of life,” said Wang Yueyun, secretary-general of the He Foundation, which was set up nearly four years ago.

At age 75, He is one of the elder statesmen of the business world after starting up a small plastics factory in 1968 in the Shunde district of Foshan in Guangdong province.

By 1980, he started manu-