U.S. Businesses Pledge $54M To Aid China

By YLAN Q. MUI, The Washington Post | May 28, 2008

WASHINGTON — American companies have pledged at least $54 million in cash, goods, and services to victims of the earthquake that devastated the Sichuan province of China two weeks ago, the third-largest international aid package ever assembled by American businesses.

About 19 businesses — including consumer goods manufacturer Procter & Gamble, beer brewer Anheuser Busch, and pharmaceutical company Merck — have pledged $1 million or more. Two of the largest donors are Amway, a direct sales company, with $4.3 million, and big-box retailer Wal-Mart, with more than $3 million.

"The magnitude of U.S. corporate contributions indicates the level of concern for the victims of the tragedy," the executive director of the Business Civic Leadership Center at the Commerce Department, which compiled the figures, Stephen Jordan, said.

Corporate giving is expected to grow as the death toll rises. According to China's official news agency, Xinhua, the number of deaths reached 67,183 yesterday afternoon. More than 360,000 people have been injured and nearly 21,000 remain missing.

In addition, the deadly cyclone that struck nearby Burma, has spurred about $3.7 million in assistance from American businesses, according to the center.

China has become vitally important to American corporations as both a producer of goods and an increasingly voracious consumer of them. Wal-Mart operates a global procurement office there, for example, but also runs about a dozen stores under the name Trust-Mart and its namesake banner in the region affected by the quake. Chevron, which donated $1.4 million to relief efforts, also has a stake in developing natural gas production in the region.

"It's well-intentioned and has a philanthropic pulse to it," the director of research at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, Patrick Rooney, said.

But, he added, "a lot of the U.S.-based corporations are doing business in China now, and they recognize they have a strategic interest and relationship that's important to maintain."