(Yicai Global) March 22 -- Tongwei said the daughter of founder Liu Hanyuan has been appointed as the new chairwoman and chief executive officer of the leading Chinese silicon producer.

Liu Shuqi succeeds Xie Yi, who stepped down for personal reasons on March 19, the Chengdu-based company said late yesterday. She is competent in operations and management, and led the Tongwei's expansion in the photovoltaic market, it noted.

Born in 1989, Liu graduated from Queen Mary University, London and worked at Tongwei as a director, assistant president, and general manager of the PV business department, where she was in charge of procurement and sales of the firm's silicon materials, batteries, and solar panels. 

Thanks to the PV industry’s fast growth, Tongwei expects net profit to have soared 207 percent to 231 percent to between CNY25.2 billion and CNY27.2 billion (USD3.7 billion and USD4 billion) in the 12 months ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier, it said in January.

Founder Liu Hanyuan resigned from all his posts at Tongwei in 2019, but remains its controller with a 35 percent stake, which he owns through parent company Tongwei Group, where he is the controller and chairman.

Established in 1992, Tongwei first thrived in aquatic feed and went public in Shanghai in 2004. Under Liu Hanyuan's leadership, it began to focus on the PV industry in 2006, gradually becoming China's biggest supplier of polycrystalline silicon. 

Shares of Tongwei [SHA: 600438] ended little changed at CNY38.73 (USD5.62) each today, with a a market capitalization of CNY174.3 billion (USD25.3 billion).

Editor: Martin Kadiev