Eka
Tjipta Widjaja Widjaja, born sometime in 1921, emigrated to Sulawesi, Indonesia from Fujian, China at the age of nine. He started out selling biscuits from a bicycle rickshaw in the late 1930s. Widjaja survived several collapses along the way before he became one of Indonesia’s wealthiest businessmen. During World War II, Japanese price controls wiped out his palm-oil business. When Indonesia's war for independence against the Dutch crushed his commodity-trading business in 1949, he sold family jewelry to repay creditors and traded in his car for a bicycle. He rebuilt by forging close ties with Indonesia's military, selling food and other supplies to troops on remote islands in eastern Indonesia. In March 17, 2006, the Widjaja family established Eka Tjipta Foundation (http://www.ekatjiptafoundation.org) . The foundation spends heavily on education by providing scholarships in partnership with various universities in Indonesia. Widjaja has turned over the management of the Sinar Mas Group to his family – eldest son, Teguh Ganda Widjaja runs APP and the other pulp-and-paper businesses while his other son, Indra Widjaja looks after financial matters. The older Widjaja currently resides in Singapore. Sources: Mapes, Timothy. Posted on August 15, 2003, Wall Street
Journal. Retrieved on August 31, 2009 from http://www.geocities.com/propertytycoonguy/widjaja.html Photo credits: http://indonesiathisday.blogspot.com/2009/05/who-is-indonesian-richest-2009.html  |
Eka Tjipta Widjaja is the founder of Sinar Mas Group (http://www.sinarmasgroup.com)
that includes the Asia Pulp and Paper Company, one of the 10 largest
paper companies in the world. His business empire ranges from palm
oil to real estate and extend from India to China. Its palm-based
consumer company, PT Smart TK (http://www.smart-tbk.com) is one
of the largest in Indonesia whose plantation covers almost 130,000
hectares. It also distributes, markets, and exports palm-based products
such as cooking oil, margarine, and shortening.