One Chinese family's legacy in paradise

Founded in 1931 by Jean Moilin, the ABC Group is today one of the top 25 conglomerates in the country and employs more than 1,300 people. The company's extensive portfolio includes food, automobiles, banking, insurance, shipping and logistics. And it all started from a humble grocery store in Port Louis called ABC, which stands for Au Bazar Central.

In the 18th century, the period when Mauritius was colonized by French and British settlers, sugar plantations were the country's core industry. Many Indians flocked to the sugar cane farms in the country to work and this soon led to the start of a special relationship between them and the Chinese.

"The sugar planting season lasted only six months, so there was no work for the workers in the other half of the year. But although the workers didn't get paid, the Chinese shopkeepers still supplied them with food for free," says Donald.

In 1942, Jean Moilin became the youngest president of the Mauritian Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and this marked the start of his political career. Under his charge, the chamber later played an important role in providing food to the Chinese community in Mauritius during World War II when Japanese warships and submarines disrupted the food supply to the nation. He also played a pivotal role in rallying the Chinese against Japan.

"Besides rallying overseas Chinese youth to raise funds to help China fend off the Japanese invaders, my father also organized a small group of Chinese shopkeepers to form a defense force for Mauritius. The force, with him as its captain, had a few hundred members," says Donald.

According to the Changsha Evening News, one of the members of this defense force was Lan Binggang, who was in 2015 awarded a medal at a ceremony in China to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). The report said that Lan had arrived in Mauritius in 1936 before returning to the Chinese mainland in December 1939 to join the fight against the Japanese invaders.

In recognition of his contributions during the war, Jean Moilin became the first Chinese representative on the Legislative Council in Mauritius in 1948. He continued to climb the ranks in the local government when he was appointed the Minister of Local Government in 1968 after Mauritius became an independent nation. This historic appointment brought much pride to the Chinese community in the country as Sino-Mauritians, most of whom were Hakka, accounted for only 2 percent of the country's population.