Chen Chung-ho
Sugar and Trade Magnate
Late Qing / Japanese Colonial
1853–1930
Chen Chung-ho was born in 1853 in Kaohsiung and made his start in the trading houses of the southern ports, dealing in sugar and rice during the late Qing when Taiwan's harbours were opening to the world. He built an extensive export business, shipping Taiwanese sugar and rice to markets across Asia, and sailed through the change of regime in 1895 with his commercial instincts intact. Under Japanese rule, as the colony poured investment into modern sugar manufacturing, he moved from trading into industry, founding the Shinko Sugar Company in the early 1900s and mechanising production on the Kaohsiung plain. His trading and manufacturing concerns grew into one of the leading enterprises of southern Taiwan, and he became the founding patriarch of the Chen family of Kaohsiung, counted among the island's 'five great families.' A bridge between the old world of the Qing merchant and the new world of colonial industry, Chen Chung-ho died in 1930, leaving a business and landholding legacy that shaped the development of the south for generations.
Built a sugar and rice export business across Asia
Founded the Shinko Sugar Company on the Kaohsiung plain
Sugar and Trade Magnate
Chen Chung-ho
Era
Late Qing / Japanese Colonial
Lifespan
1853–1930
Chen Chung-ho was born in 1853 in Kaohsiung and made his start in the trading houses of the southern ports, dealing in sugar and rice during the late Qing when Taiwan's harbours were opening to the world. He built an extensive export business, shipping Taiwanese sugar and rice to markets across Asia, and sailed through the change of regime in 1895 with his commercial instincts intact. Under Japanese rule, as the colony poured investment into modern sugar manufacturing, he moved from trading into industry, founding the Shinko Sugar Company in the early 1900s and mechanising production on the Kaohsiung plain. His trading and manufacturing concerns grew into one of the leading enterprises of southern Taiwan, and he became the founding patriarch of the Chen family of Kaohsiung, counted among the island's 'five great families.' A bridge between the old world of the Qing merchant and the new world of colonial industry, Chen Chung-ho died in 1930, leaving a business and landholding legacy that shaped the development of the south for generations.
Built a sugar and rice export business across Asia
Founded the Shinko Sugar Company on the Kaohsiung plain