Ding Houqing

Ding Houqing (1887-May 3, 1970), a native of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, was a modern industrialist in China. Ding Houqing was born into a fish farming family and was the number one broker of the Shanghai Flour Exchange in his early years. In 1926, he founded China Fuxin Tobacco Company in Shanghai and served as chairman and general manager. Fuxin Cigarette Factory later became a famous cigarette factory, and he was also known as the "Cigarette King" of Shanghai. In addition, he also founded Taifeng Warehouse, Huaxin Flour Mill (1943), Wuxi Cement Factory (1944), Tianhua Flour Mill (1945), and concurrently served as general manager of Shanghai Guanghua Bank, chairman of Xinsheng Cotton Mill, Tianping and Baolong Insurance Company, and Renkang Bank. After the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, he served as a director of the National Commercial Control Federation and chairman of the Central China Tobacco Control Committee under Wang Jingwei's regime. After the Anti-Japanese War, he went to Hong Kong to open the Hong Kong office of Fuxin Tobacco Factory. In 1949, Fuxin Cigarette Factory had three cigarette factories in Shanghai, Qingdao and Tianjin. In 1952 he moved to Brazil. He died in 1970 at the age of 83.