Gansu Shengda Group Ltd. ("Shengda") has been one of the 500 largest privately-owned Chinese enterprises since 2001. Shengda is a Lanzhou city, Gansu province-based conglomerate, whose main operations are in the mining industry. Shengda currently owns eight producing mines, including a major interest in Bairendaba, and over 20 exploration properties, mostly in northern China. Bairendaba is a supersized Ag-Pb-Zn mine with proven reserves of over 4,000 tonnes of silver and 1.5 million tonnes of lead and zinc, and a milling capacity of over 1 million tonnes' ore per year. Shengda is the operator and the largest shareholder of Bairendaba with a 42% ownership interest. Bairendaba is adjacent to the Erbahuo Silver District, where all of Sino-Top's nine properties are located (see project location map on Silver Dragon's homepage). Shengda intends to go public in China with some of its premium mining assets by the end of this year.

This might be the Chinese connection we are looking for. If the end justifies the means, I am willing to hold my nose about this Marc Hazout character. I guess if people had been adverse to investing in Diamond Fields because it was Robert Friedlands venture, a lot of wealth would not have been created. Friedland was a major scumbag, drug dealer and general scheister who ended up selling his little nickle mine in Labrador to INCO for $4 BILLION. If it were announced that Robert Friedland was a major investor in Crystallex, Silver Dragon or Sino Top Resources, I would mortgage my house and cash out my insurance policies to buy what I could.

I would prefer that Fung's associated were all squeaky clean, but I guess not everyone on Wall or Bay Street has an unblemished past, Mr. Fung included.