Song Zhiping, chairman of Jilin Conair Group, has been in business for 30 years in the northeastern province of Jilin, and she is doing the chemical industry that only men dare to do, accompanied by explosions and fires all day long, falling into pits many times and tenaciously climbing back up, and it is a miracle that she hasn’t collapsed to this day.
On December 31, 2025 Zhenghe Island case co-learning New Year’s big class was held in Dongguan, the conference to entrepreneurs is how to be made as the theme, to share the growth story of entrepreneurs, and discuss the entrepreneurial spirit of the new era.
In the forum, Song Zhiping gave a wonderful speech with his own entrepreneurial story and growth experience as the theme.
In the speech, Song Zhiping recalled her own lessons of failure and success, especially mentioning that when she was prosecuted for the failure of the methanol-to-olefin project with an investment of 4.5 billion dollars and was enforced by the height restriction, she said that she was once worse than dead.
She also shared the story that in order to get the world’s most advanced monopoly technology, she flew to Sweden 15 times in two years and went through many negotiations, and finally succeeded in acquiring the Swedish International Chemical Industry, which owns the world’s most advanced monopoly technology, and successfully entered the downstream of the chemical industry, the new chemical material industry.
When mentioning Song Zhiping Gymnasium named after herself, she said emotionally, “If one day my bones are rotten, Song Zhiping Gymnasium is still standing in my alma mater, and more alumni are exercising here, which makes me very proud of myself”.
The following is the compilation of this speech, I hope you will be inspired!
Oral speech Song Zhiping Chairman of Jilin Cornell Group
Source ID jueceshidian
Mr. Donghua said that many entrepreneurs climbed out from the dead, and I think this is so true. Most entrepreneurs, whether they have succeeded or failed, have gone through the process of climbing out of the pile of dead people.
I have been an entrepreneur in the Northeast for 30 years in the chemical industry. The reason why I am called the Queen of Chemical Industry is because the chemical industry is a man’s world, an extremely risky industry, accompanied by explosions and fires all day long, and there are almost no women around the globe like me, who have invested so much in such risky things, that’s why I am called the Queen of Chemical Industry.
But from the chemical industry as a whole, there are many chemical giants, we private enterprises so little investment is nothing.
Below, I would like to share with you my failures and successes.
In 2017, I responded to the government’s call for chemical chain replenishment and invested 4.5 billion yuan in Jilin City, on a Methanol to Olefin coal chemical project, using methanol to produce ethylene and propylene, the project was put into operation for less than a year, but the major downstream enterprises shut down, resulting in no place to sell ethylene and propylene of our leading enterprise, because ethylene can only be transported by pipeline, which is in principle not transportable.
Although the government also invested $1.5 billion in the project, I invested $3 billion in the loan, and it was guaranteed by the unlimited liability of the couple. After the suspension of the project, because it can not afford to pay the interest of 400 million per year, resulting in the bank can not give us timely reverse loan, thus defaulting on interest arrears.
Prosecuted by the implementation of the high limit, these are falling on our husband and wife, my beloved after cancer to go to Hainan to convalesce, can not take the plane and high-speed rail, can only sit for three days and two nights on the green train from Jilin to Sanya, which really makes my heart ache.
Any entrepreneur, will take the enterprise as their own children, every day to see their children can not grow up to be successful, this suffering makes me worse than death.
Today, there’s a new opportunity for this project because there’s a new technology that can save this device and make green aviation kerosene.
What do I mean by this? In the next 10 years, there are several major development directions, one of which is new energy, from wind power devices to green power, then to green hydrogen, then to green methanol, and then to green aviation kerosene, this new energy industry chain, there are huge investment opportunities. With the technology of the United States, my device can dry 300,000 tons of green aviation kerosene.
My failures are sad, but there have been brilliant.
Aniline, an important chemical raw material, the United States DuPont is the world’s largest commercial aniline manufacturer, with an annual output of 280,000 tons of aniline. It took me five years to reach 360,000 tons, exceeding DuPont’s aniline capacity, and I bought DuPont’s technology.
But I found that I left the pollution to my hometown, to release 600,700,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year, the production of a ton of aniline, can only earn 1,000 yuan, 360,000 tons a year to earn more than 400 million, but my aniline sold to the Americans and Europeans to do the raw material, the profit is more than doubled, so want to stretch the industry chain downstream dry.
However, there are only five companies in the world that have this technology in production, namely Bayer BASF in Europe, Huntsman Dow in the United States, and Wanhua in China, and of course, none of them are willing to cooperate with us in terms of technology. They only want to buy my raw materials, and they don’t want me to enter such a high-tech industry.
I heard that DuPont also has this technology, I found DuPont, they said they have sold the technology to Sweden International Chemical. I went to Sweden, hoping that they could sell the technology to me. But the person in charge of this company said that this technology would not be sold to the Chinese.
I said, “Then I will acquire your company. At that time, they thought it was a joke, thinking that a Chinese woman could still buy out her company? They didn’t give a damn about me. I went back to them and said, “I can afford to buy it, Cornell is the largest aniline manufacturer, and I’m the only one who can move on to the polyurethane program.
Over the next two years, I made 15 trips to Sweden. I thought this was something I had to do, and if I did it would be the biggest success of my life.
I went to Sweden to find them, they ignored me, and did not invite me to dinner, then I invited them to dinner, the Swedes are still more civilized, it is not good to refuse me, a Chinese woman, please eat, by deepening the feelings and understanding, and finally, after two years, we succeeded in more than 100 million U.S. dollars to acquire the Swedish International Chemical Industry.
The Swedes are particularly proud of the acquisition, I went to the meeting after the acquisition, from Stockholm off the plane to the enterprise has 200 kilometers of road, they do not pick me up, let us rent a car to go there. I was very angry, they really didn’t treat me as their boss!
But Li Shufu encouraged me. He had acquired Volvo in Sweden before me. The Volvo he bought was about 30 kilometers from the company I bought. He said, “I was in the same situation, and the Swedes didn’t take me seriously enough, but it was nothing to get us there.
I tell you, if you are a boss in China and you throw a coat back, someone will take it right behind you. But in Sweden, if I throw my coat back, it will definitely fall on the ground, and the Swedish employees won’t pick it up.
I think this is nothing, you look down on us Chinese, I also lead you!
After the acquisition, I asked them to turn the 200,000-ton process package into 400,000 tons within one year. They said it was impossible. It took 10 years for BASF in Germany to turn from 200,000 tons to 400,000 tons, and they said they couldn’t do it in one year, but it turned out to be only a year and a half, and they got 400,000 tons of the process package.
Meanwhile, I am laying out factories in Fujian, why? Because the north has Yantai Wanhua, Bayer BASF Huntsman is in Shanghai have built a plant, BASF also built a plant in Chongqing, on the whole, only Fujian is located in the southeastern region does not have such plants.
Site selection is strategic, find the Germans and Americans in China layout of the gap, there is a chance of being acquired by them, there is also a chance of being acquired by the U.S. Dow. In the end it was acquired by Wanhua of China.
I would like to tell you that you should have a long-term plan and a good strategy for everything you do, and you should not go to the west or go to the east. If I had a strategy 30 years ago, I would have done better than I am doing now. Because if you have an accurate strategy, you are more likely to achieve your final goal. For example, if you want to be acquired, do you want to do a small business alone, or do you want to take a stake in a big business?
In a large plate, although you do not hold, but as long as you choose a good major shareholder partner, your earnings are much higher than the small plate holding. This is the pain point of our private enterprises, is the choice of their own say or choose to evening big money to save money.
Entrepreneurs should be political and take social responsibility.
In 2014, I donated 100 million to my alma mater, Jilin University, to build a gymnasium, which is now the biggest and best gymnasium in the national colleges and universities, and can host international events.
Jilin University gave me the honor of naming it Song Zhiping Gymnasium. If one day my bones rot away, Song Zhiping Gymnasium will still be standing in my alma mater, and more alumni will be exercising here, which makes me very proud of myself.
My various donations in my hometown of Jilin actually exceeded 120 million dollars, but very few people remembered, especially when the leaders changed, they basically forgot.
Not that donations must be remembered by others, as a private enterprise, there are so many real money out of their pockets, is not easy to do. In addition, I have accumulated over the years to donate 1600 poor children to study, I am also very pleased .
It is very difficult to start a business, and many enterprises have encountered great difficulties today, and there may be even greater difficulties waiting for us next year and the year after that.
In these 30 years, I have fallen into the pit many times and climbed out by myself, and I have stepped on mines many times and saved myself.
How can we all step on less mines and fall into fewer pits in our future life, and even if we fall into a pit, we can still climb out, then we must continue to learn and improve ourselves in order to be risk-resistant and to make ourselves successful, and Zhenghe Island is the best choice for us.
Thank you!
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