THREE people from Shenzhen are on a shortlist to receive a national award for having made outstanding contributions to China’s reform and opening up as 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the policy, the Shenzhen Economic Daily reported yesterday citing the People’s Daily.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has decided to commend 1,000 individuals nationwide, according to the report.

The list was made public at 8 a.m. Monday for a five-day period of public consultation that ends at 5 p.m. Friday.

The three Shenzheners are Pony Ma, Yu Guogang and Yuan Geng.

Pony Ma, a native of Shantou in Guangdong, is the chairman and CEO of Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd. Benefiting from the reform and opening up, Ma, 47, founded and led Tencent from a small business with only five people to one of the most influential Internet companies in the world, said the report.

Ma is also hailed for promoting the “Internet+” concept and Internet applications, such as WeChat, QQ and mobile payment, which gave a boost to the digital transformation and upgrading as it relates to people’s livelihood, government affairs, production and consumption, and life and health, as well as protection of ecological environment.

He has won “Distinguished Chinese Private Technology Entrepreneur” and “Southern Guangdong Outstanding Contribution” awards.

Yu Guogang, former deputy general manager and legal representative of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), witnessed and participated in the birth and development of China’s capital market, according to Yu’s personal profile.

The 74-year-old was responsible for the preparation of the SZSE in 1988 and learned from foreign securities market laws and regulations to lay the institutional foundation of the SZSE, which significantly promoted the standardized development of China’s securities market.

Yu, a native of Ankang in Shaanxi Province, has also pushed ahead with the SZSE’s digital services, making the SZSE a well-known stock exchange in the Asia-Pacific region, and even the world, and leading its securities trading system to occupy a leading position globally.

Yuan Geng, a Shenzhen native who passed away at 99 years old in 2016, was the former executive vice chairman of China Merchants Group and former director of Shekou Industrial Zone Management Committee.

Yuan is recognized for being a bold innovator. He put forward a series of new concepts adapted to the market economy and carried out a number of structural and mechanistic reforms, making Shekou the birthplace of China’s reform and opening up.

Additionally, Yuan established China’s first export-oriented industrial park in Shekou, which nurtured a number of excellent enterprises, such as China Merchants Bank and Ping An Insurance.

Yuan’s courage to explore and innovate has provided valuable experience while making historical contributions to China’s reform and opening up, the report said. He was awarded the Golden Bauhinia Medal issued by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 2003.(Zhang Yu)