Sideline support

Pan Xiaohai, who owns a business that sells watermelons at Xinfadi, grew up in a poor farming family in the northeastern province of Jilin.

When his father died in 1989, the 17-year-old had to care for his ailing mother, two younger sisters and a younger brother.

In 1990, Pan came to Beijing by himself and started working as a porter at the capital's largest watermelon market.

To make more money and support his family back home, he loaded and unloaded trucks at the market by day, while at night he collected unsold or slightly damaged watermelons and sold them from a battered tricycle.

The sideline was a success. "I never imagined I could earn more than 100 yuan in a single night. I found that doing business was much better than being a manual laborer," he said.

In 1998, Pan came to Xinfadi, looking to develop his business. He received strong support from Zhang Yuxi, the market's president.

Pan quickly realized that the market sold very few out-of-season fruits or vegetables, especially during winter.

"The watermelons sold in Hainan, Vietnam and Myanmar (all tropical regions) in winter barely reached the market in the north of the country," he said. After discovering the gap, Pan began to ship high-quality watermelons from Hainan (China's most southerly province) to Xinfadi, and watched as they sold out quickly.

Today, he has established agricultural bases covering over 6,600 hectares in 10 provinces, as well as in Vietnam, Myanmar and Russia.

The local governments have commended Pan for providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of farmers, and for the many donations he has made to help victims of natural disasters.