Cheung Yan of Nine Dragons Named RISI's 2014 Asian CEO of the Year

SHANGHAI, April 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry today announced that Ms. Cheung Yan, Chairlady of Nine Dragons Paper (ND Paper), has been named Asian CEO of the Year for 2014.  The award will be presented to Ms. Cheung at RISI's 15^th annual Asian Pulp and Paper Conference at the Swissotel Grand Hotel in Shanghai, June 9-11, 2014. 

Respondents to the annual RISI survey, including investment analysts and portfolio managers covering the forest products industry, selected Ms. Cheung based on leadership, vision and strategic accomplishments.  One analyst commented, "Ms Cheung's dedication in the packaging paper business in China has helped her business achieve solid growth in 2013, amid China's intention to shift to a more consumer orientated market as well as an environmental friendly economy."

Ms. Cheung commented, "I am honored to be a winner of the RISI Asian CEO of the Year Award this year.  I believe this is also an achievement brought by the concerted efforts of everybody at Nine Dragons.  As the global economic downsides have gradually subsided since 2013, economies such as the United States and Europe showed more possibility for recovery. Meanwhile, China has entered a period of transformations emphasizing balanced progress with stability, while fast growing online shopping activities have brought changes to the consumption market model. This visibly demonstrates the non-substitutable value of packaging paperboard in the supply chain and an ever enlarging market space for packaging paperboard products, thus enabling the packaging paper industry to realize a long-term and steady development on a well-built market base. Capturing the valuable opportunities from the industry recovery, the ND Paper Group has continued to draw upon its strengths in a nationwide production base network and diversified product offerings as well as the stable and strong production capacity and trusted sales teams, further reinforcing its leading position and irreplaceable role in the industry."

Ms. Cheung (Chinese: born 1957 in Shaoguan, Guangdong with ancestral domicile in Heilongjiang) is known as the "wastepaper queen", is the founder and also chairlady of Nine Dragons Paper.

Ms. Cheung started her business in 1985 by opening a paper trading company in Hong Kong, a convenient source of raw materials in the form of wastepaper, using her savings of $3,800 when she discovered that the Chinese export sector faced an enormous scarcity of paper packaging materials. In the early 90's, she moved to Los Angeles and together with her husband Liu Ming Chung she founded the recovered paper exporting company America Chung Nam, which has been the number one American recovered paper exporter since 2001. It is also the largest overall exporter to China, by volume shipped.

Ms. Cheung returned to China in 1995 and co-founded Nine Dragons Paper with her husband and her younger brother Zhang Cheng Fei. The company, headquartered in Dongguan, raised almost $500 million in an initial public offering in March 2006 at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The firm invested proactively and more than doubled its production capacity by 2009, becoming first Asia's and then the world's largest recovered paper based maker of packaging paper. In 2013, the ND Paper Group recorded sales of RMB28.7 billion and net profit attributable to equity holders of RMB1.88 billion.  Its annual production capacity now exceeds 13 million tonnes.

Ms. Cheung is also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body for the Chinese government.

Notes to Editors:

About RISI's Asian CEO of the Year Award

RISI's Asian CEO of the Year Award was inaugurated in 2008. RISI organizes four regional CEO awards each year in Europe, Asia, Latin America and North America, which are handed out to the winners at the regional RISI conferences. In addition, the Global CEO of the Year award is presented at the PPI Awards event, which will be held in Boston on October 8, this year.

About Asian Pulp & Paper Conference (www.risi.com/asiaconf)

The 15th RISI Asian Pulp and Paper Conference will be held at the Swissotel Grand Shanghai, on June 9-11, 2014. The conference will address some of the key issues in today's Asian pulp and paper market, and attendees will hear from industry leaders and RISI economists, who will deliver two-year outlooks on critical areas of the pulp and paper industry. Conference registration details and program information are available online at www.risi.com/asiaconf.

About Nine Dragons

Established in 1995, the Nine Dragons Paper Group is the world's largest in environmentally friendly recovered paper based paper manufacturing in terms of production capacity.

ND Paper and its subsidiaries primarily produce linerboard, high performance corrugating medium and coated duplex board. Its operations enable it to serve as a one-stop shop for a broad range of high quality packaging paperboard products. The Group's paper machines in China are located across several manufacturing hubs, including Dongguan, Guangdong Province in the Pearl River Delta, Taicang, Jiangsu Province in the Yangtze River Delta region, Chongqing, regional hub for the Central-Western Provinces, Tianjin, at the center of the Bohai Economic Rim and Quanzhou, Fujian Province on the west coast of the Taiwan Strait. As for the north-eastern markets, a new production base near Shenyang is under construction. The Group has also acquired 78.13% controlling equity interest in Hebei Yongxin Paper.

In 2013, over 96% of the company's paper sales come from its packaging paper business. In addition to packaging paperboard, the Group is also engaged in the production of printing and writing paper in Dongguan and Taicang and high value specialty paper production in Leshan, Sichuan Province.

About RISI (www.risi.com)

RISI is the leading information provider for the global forest products industry. The company works with clients in the pulp and paper, wood products, timber, biomass, tissue, nonwovens, printing and publishing industries to help them make better decisions.

Headquartered in Boston, MA, RISI operates additional offices throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia.

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SOURCE RISI