Thursday, March 3, 2011

Who Is Ngan Chin Wen


KUALA LUMPUR: Tan Sri Ngan Ching Wen (pic), the Unico-Desa Plantations Bhd executive chairman and former Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ACCIM) president, has died. He was 78. Ngan, who has three sons, died on the way to the Pantai Medical Centre here at about 10.30pm on Tuesday.

Unico-Desa non-independent and non-executive director and chairman of Unico Holdings Bhd Mew Jin Seng described Ngan as a self-righteous individual with a strong sense of entrepreneurship.

“He was very outspoken and had been a student leader in school. “When we were in Nanyang University, he was the student union’s chief of ­external affairs,” he recalled.

Ngan graduated from Nanyang University, Singapore with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics in 1962. He later pursued his LL.B (Hons) at the University of Singapore in 1966. Ngan is well-known, especially in Ipoh, for the development of palm oil. In Sabah, he is known for his contribution in turning jungles into palm oil plantations.
Ngan also ran his own property firm, developing properties in Sichuan, Shanghai, Xian and Yunnan in China.

On the social front, he was a renowned philanthropist and believed in the importance of providing education to the young. In his hometown of Sitiawan, Perak, Ngan donated land and built the Nan Hwa Independent Secondary School 40 years ago.

In the past 10 years, Ngan built more than 20 schools in some of the remote areas of China.

During the 1998 Nipah virus outbreak in Bukit Pelandok, Negri Sembilan, that claimed 105 lives among the pig-farming community, Ngan was one of the first to respond to the emergency and initiated a campaign to raise some RM10mil for the affected families.

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