Lou Jiwei

Alternative member 17th CPC, Central Committee; Chairman, China Investment Corporation

Date of Birth: 1950
Place of Birth: Beijing

Lou Jiwei was born in Zhejiang province in 1950 and came of age during the Cultural Revolution. With few outlets for a bright but directionless young man, he travelled the country by train for some time with friends before deciding to join the navy, where he served from 1968 to 1973. On leaving the service, he moved to Beijing, joined the Communist Party and worked in the offi ce of Capital Iron and Steel. When the Qinghua University reopened after the Cultural Revolution, Lou enrolled in its computer science department. After graduation, he studied econometrics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which led to work in the State Council in 1985.

As director of an economic reform commission in Shanghai in 1988, he entered the orbit of China’s future president, Jiang Zemin, then Shanghai Party Secretary, and the Mayor of Shanghai, Zhu Rongji (AAC Vol 1 No 1), who would become Jiang’s premier. Lou spent three years in Guizhou province as Vice-Governor, before returning to Beijing as Vice-Minister of Finance.

In October 2007, Lou offi cially became Chairman of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), which is funded with US$200 billion of China’s foreign exchange reserves. The State Council has given him no limits on where he can invest it, and the world thrills and trembles at this latest instrument of Chinese power. Lou is the CIC’s man in Beijing; travelling duties will fall to the fund’s General Manager, Gao Xiqing, a United States-trained lawyer with Wall Street experience.

September 2009: World Bank President Robert Zoellick was in Beijng talking to Chinese officials about cooperation with the Chinese sovereign-wealth fund China Investment Corporation led by Lou Jiwei on some $4 billion of investment in Africa.