Meet the China's billionaires that lives on $20 a day

The china billionaires in question is Zong Qinghou, by some measures China's richest man.Over two decades Zong Qinghou's company grew from a school shop selling vitamin drinks to having a 15% share

of  China's soft drinks market

His company Wahaha has a 15% share of China's soft drinks market, and sales of nearly a billion dollars a year in children's clothing.

Zong's monk-like devotion to duty is legendary. A former employee remembers he personally reviewed every office expense, including the purchase of a broom.

He still personally signs every major spending decision. In his office are two safes in which he told me he keeps the company seals of each of his approximately 200 subsidiaries.

He says he lives on $20 a day. "My only exercise is doing market research... my only hobbies are smoking and drinking tea," he told me (when I asked, he said his favourite brand was Lipton's).

Liquid foundation.

Over two decades, he grew the company from a shop in a school selling ice lollies and vitamin drinks.

In 1989, he established the Wahaha Nutritional Food Factory in Hangzhou to produce Wahaha Oral Liquid for Children.

The founders see family members as more trustworthy and reliable than other senior management.

His daughter runs important parts of the business, but Zong says he has not yet chosen her as his successor.

No handouts

Zong is unusual amongst Chinese businessmen in his focus on philanthropy. But he does not just give his money away.

He said hard work was the key to the poor lifting themselves out of poverty. If you give money to the poor "they just spend it," he told me.

His daugther is a US passport holder, and Mr Zong said his main interest in working with foreign companies is to import products which Chinese companies are bad at making, yet his joint venture to set up Chinese factories with Danone ended acrimoniously.