President Zhang Zhigang Talks About Integrity
Release Time:
2011-04-08 10:47
Source:
President Forum
Excerpted from the article "Building Commercial Integrity Together Is Our Unshirkable Responsibility" by Zhang Zhigang, President of the China General Chamber of Commerce
Integrity, I believe, has rich and profound connotations and is an eternal theme. "Integrity" includes two meanings: "honesty" and "credit." Honesty is the consistency of thought and behavior, sincere and without falsehood; credit is keeping promises and thereby gaining trust, otherwise it is losing credit, also called credit deficiency.
Integrity is a traditional virtue of the Chinese nation and one of the basic characteristics of traditional Chinese commerce. Historically in China, there has long been the creed "A person cannot stand without trust, and a business cannot prosper without trust." Many time-honored Chinese commercial brands have a long history and are renowned at home and abroad. Although they engage in different industries and have different development characteristics, they share one common point: honesty and trustworthiness, with no deception of any kind. The influence of integrity is relative; it increases with the development of productive forces and the maturity of the market economy. Under modern market economy conditions, as the economic scale expands and correlations strengthen, the demand for credit is increasingly high. Whether government, enterprises, news media, or social organizations, all regard integrity as an indispensable and important part of their own construction, and in economic activities, it is necessary to understand the credit level of partners and use it as an important basis for decision-making. In Chinese culture and traditional commerce, honesty and credit are very important and have been inherited and developed for thousands of years, mainly appearing in cultural form and reflected at the moral level. This is one of the foundations of our civilization developed over thousands of years and has formed the soil of our traditional commercial culture. Now, we are building a socialist country with Chinese characteristics. Under market economy conditions, many new situations and problems have emerged, and the construction of integrity has been endowed with the connotations and new requirements of the times. Our government adheres to the principle of "governing the country by law and by virtue." The construction of integrity not only inherits fine traditions but also absorbs new experiences from the market economy. Integrity construction is based on the rule of law, and various law-abiding records become part of credit, visible, recordable, and supervised. Credit has become an intangible asset and wealth of individuals or units. Whether goods are genuine and priced fairly, operating legally, paying taxes according to regulations, repaying loans on time, paying wages punctually, importing and exporting legally, etc., performance in these aspects constitutes verifiable "wealth" or "assets" of credit. With the expansion of the economy, frequent interactions, and increased correlations, market forces will allow those who keep their promises to "move freely" and make it "difficult to proceed" for those who break promises. This shows that we must continue to rely on morality and traditional culture to build integrity, but we must also use legal constraints, administrative management, public opinion supervision, technological progress, and other means for comprehensive governance to accelerate and improve the construction of integrity.
Commercial capital pursuing profit is beyond reproach. However, "A gentleman loves wealth but acquires it in a proper way." It is necessary to insist on operating according to law and with integrity. Enterprises losing trust not only destroy business ethics, harm society, and damage consumer interests but also greatly increase transaction costs in economic operations and disrupt market order; enterprises losing trust will inevitably affect their own reputation, causing business loss, market share decline, and economic damage, which is "lifting a stone to smash one's own feet." Strengthening integrity construction in the circulation field is an important part of fully implementing the scientific outlook on development, a need for implementing the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" and accelerating the transformation of the circulation industry development mode, and also a need for building a harmonious society and accelerating China's economic and social development. Strengthening integrity construction involves a wide scope, is a systematic project, and is an urgent task requiring joint efforts from the state, government, enterprises, industry organizations, and social opinion. This is a long-term process requiring persistent efforts.
First, the state should legislate on integrity construction. However, mature policies and extensive practices rising to the level of law require a process, so government administrative regulations and rules from competent departments are still indispensable and more realistic choices at this stage. But relying only on these aspects is not enough; enterprises also have a responsibility and must elevate integrity construction to a level related to their own survival and development, truly treating it as a matter of life and death rather than perfunctory or evasive. There are successful examples both worldwide and in China. At the same time, there are cases where enterprises have suffered catastrophic failures due to lack of integrity; the Enron incident and China's Shijiazhuang Shuanglu milk powder incident remain unforgettable. The supervision by news media has played a great role in promoting integrity construction.
Building commercial integrity together is our unshirkable responsibility. In recent years, the China General Chamber of Commerce, together with relevant professional associations, has done a lot of work. In the future, the China General Chamber of Commerce will further adapt to market needs and industry normative development requirements, conduct research, propose policies and suggestions to government departments to strengthen industry integrity construction; strengthen services for member enterprises, enhance industry self-discipline, jointly create a more harmonious business environment, promote commercial integrity construction, and make greater contributions to national economic development and social harmony and stability!
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