Another Chinese multinational conglomerate, Tiens Group has recently announced that they are ready to set foot in Sri Lanka with a minimum investment of over Rs. 2.3 billion or Chinese Renminbi (Yuan) 10 million.
Accordingly Chinese billionaire businessman Li Jinyuan, founder and head of Tiens Group had told reporters that the group is in a major business expansion drive under the company’s flagship initiative ‘One body-Multiple wings’ and highlighted that his company is looking at the Iranawila golf course and wellness hotel project investment positively. Jinyuan had expressed his optimism in Sri Lanka’s potential for massive development after seeing the rapid modernization in Colombo and suburbs during his recent visit to the country further disclosing that almost 8 years had passed since his previous visit to Sri Lanka. Tiens founder Jinyuan had told reporters that he met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe during his visit to Sri Lanka and the meeting went very well. Accordingly, Tiens Group has introduced nine sectors of developing platforms to the business, in parallel with Sri Lanka’s developing path, Tiens will expand the business in tourism, finance, great health industry (Tai JiShen), international hotel alliance, real estate and pharmaceutical industry.
Tiens is said to be entering into the country’s online market in a big way through local franchise holder Richy (Lanka) Trading (Pvt) Ltd venturing into e-commerce business, whilst company is also exploring the possibility of building a large production base in the country, which will introduce China’s quality healthcare products, and cooperate with local universities and research institutes to set up research and development centres to produce suitable products
Tiens is a Chinese multinational conglomerate, mainly operating in biotechnology, logistics, finance, property, international trade, retail, e-business, education and tourism, and the company headquarters are in the port city of Tianjin. Company’s first business activity was the export of traditional Chinese medicinal products, calcium tablets and instant coffee. These products were sold via direct marketing directly to consumers, reaching 16 million customers in 190 countries as of 2009, according to the company’s website and most consumers were located in Russia, with some 60,000 in Germany.
Reports outline that through a multi-level marketing approach, Tiens supplies its products through independent agents to the final customer. As of 2009, Tiens claimed to have more than 12 million direct salespeople worldwide, including over 40,000 in Germany alone and in May 2015, the company sent 6,400 employees on a four-day tour of France, according to reports. However, reports also highlight that in Karachi, Pakistan, the Federal Investigation Agency told media that the Tiens group tricked people by offering jobs, and compared the company’s tactics to pyramid schemes, because of the large up-front investment and commission-based sales model.
Meanwhile, in late November 2017, an individual named Ernie Ting said to be Vice President, Asia Pacific Region and Managing Director South Asia Sub-Region of the Tiens Group had told reporters that the Tiens Group has also received licence to establish its very own private university which is expected to be completed by the year 2011. At that time Ting had said that the university is built to house an estimated 30,000 student population and is one of the group’s major project undertaking scheduled to be completed by 2011.
The reports added that time in 2010, although the Tiens Group has only been operating in Sri Lanka for a brief period of 4 years the group has achieved tremendous results within a short period of time primarily due to the economic boom taking place in the country.
“Sri Lanka at present has a record breaking 50,000 Tiens distributors which signifies the high potential Sri Lanka has with regards to this area of business. Also in addition to Sri Lanka, India too has become a booming market for the Tiens Group” Ting had told reporters that time. Ting had further stressed to reporters that time adding “Ours is undoubtedly a very interesting and challenging industry and I would like to stress on the fact that we have no involvement whatsoever with any form of pyramid operations, which is an area that we very strongly oppose. Therefore in the future we hope to further tighten our ties with Sri Lanka and take our business operations forward for the betterment of the both the country and its people.”
– Reporting by Devendra Francis