Chinese media mogul to visit Kerry
THE PRESIDENT of one of the world’s largest media groups is set to visit Kerry on his holidays.
The man who leads China’s biggest newspaper and online site will visit Ireland shortly and Kerry is on his itinerary.
Yang Zhengwu oversees the People’s Daily which has a circulation of 5m newspapers and has an online audience of 600m Chinese – half the population.
He told of his interest in Ireland to Independent News & Media Editor-in-chief Stephen Rae who spoke at a number of conferences in China last week.
“I presented Mr Yang with a book about Kerry and an Ireland football jersey. He said Ireland is top of his list for his holidays and to learn about our culture. After I gave him the book about Kerry and told him this is the part of the country that I am from he said he would definitely visit,” said Stephen.
During his visit to China, Stephen spoke at a major media conference in the city of Dunhuang in the north west of China near the Gobi Desert. He also spoke at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing where he met China’s vice premier Zhang Gaoli. Mr Zhang is in charge of China’s soaring economy and oversees the multi-billion Belt and Road Initiative in which China is investing in infrastructure from Beijing to Europe.
“It was an eye-opening visit,” said Stephen, originally from Boolteens, Castlemaine. “China has really embraced technology and their pace of change is astounding. There are great opportunities from Irish firms out there. For example, the butter we were served in Dunhuang was from New Zealand. Why couldn’t that be Irish butter?” said Stephen.
“On the tech side it was amazing to see that a big TV star out there is a robot, in effect a chatbot and that may be the future of television,” he said.