In the early 19th century, with the emergence of the financial, shipping and modern industrial centers in the Far East, tens of thousands of industrialists and businessmen in Ningbo moved to Shanghai. Thanks to their mutual support, they soon stood out in the city. However, they did not stop there, but made their presence in cities nationwide. Their success, a miracle in modern Chinese industrial and business history, won them a high reputation. Today, Ningbo businessmen are found in every corner of the world, turning themselves into a strong force of Chinese businessmen overseas.

In those days, Ningbo proper was small but densely populated, local people had to utilize outside resources for their development. The shipping advantages that Ningbo enjoyed and together with the time-honored traditions of doing business laid a solid foundation for the rise of Ningbo businessmen. Characterized by their deep love for their motherland, the pioneering spirit, pragmatism and open-mindedness, they became the only community in Chinese commercial history that switched successfully from traditional businessmen to more modern ones. To this day, their pioneering spirit has particularly been valued by Chinese state leaders. In the late 1980’s, when the program of reform and opening-up was initiated, overseas Ningbo businessmen, responding to Deng Xiaoping’s call of mobilizing all overseas Ningbonese for the modernization drive of Ningbo, set an example to help build their motherland.

Just as the three rivers in Ningbo flow into the same sea, so overseas Ningbonese consider themselves to be of the same root. The predecessors have set a fine example for later-comers to follow.