The clear winner of Euromoney China CFO Survey's Preferred Accountants and Preferred Tax Adviser categories, PwC offers its clients in China a full array of services, ranging from the bread and butter assurance practice, through to tax and advisory, which includes corporate finance and transaction support.

“Today, we are not only the largest, but also the best,” Ng says proudly. It is not an idle boast, especially since the 2002 merger with Andersen, which brought together the two largest firms in China. “Prior to the merger, I used to consider PwC as my biggest competitor,” says the former head of Andersen's Greater China. The combined strength of Andersen's domestic practice and PwC's global client base is a headache for the competition.

PwC has grown with the evolving needs of its clients. At the time of the Open Door policy in the early eighties, PwC effectively started as a messenger centre servicing its global clients when they came to China. In the early days, the multinationals were interested in developing China's natural resources. “As China's Open Door policy began to take hold,” Ng explains, “the client portfolio gradually changed to companies looking for a cheap manufacturing base for the export market.” The next step came in the early nineties, when domestic companies started listing overseas. Says Ng: “It was only at this stage that Chinese companies started recognizing the need for professional services with an international reputation and expertise.” Today, PwC's flagship domestic clients include the Bank of China, with the largest global reach of any of China's domestic banks, and PetroChina, one of China's largest companies by sales. Its assurance practice consists of domestic companies and multinationals in equal proportion, although tax is still dominated by the multinationals.

“Our goal is to be the best”, Ng admits before detailing PwC's growth and strengths. PwC has offices spread over nine cities in Mainland China with 3,600 staff. The hallmarks can be found in the work it has won locally from multinationals at the expense of the usual global auditor, demonstrating Ng's words – “we are better”. PwC in China has an enviable hold on several industries including the internet portals, counting Netease, Sohu and Sina amongst its clients, and the shipping industry, led by the likes of Cosco, China Shipping and SinoTrans. Another key advantage PwC enjoys is “that we recruit, develop and retain the best staff in China”. However, Ng adds, “Without quality people, we could not deliver quality services. This is a key part of our investment into China”.

Ng, who first cut his teeth as a tax partner, has a reputation as an aggressive business leader. When starting out in China in 1983, the firms that later became PwC only had representative offices with less than 10 staff each. By 1994, when Ng was heading up Andersen's Shanghai office, the combined strength of PwC and Andersen was less than 500 staff. When the Andersen debacle occurred in 2002, Ng led the first major break from the global firm by joining with PwC, presaging the eventual disintegration that was to follow.

Ng sums up his business philosophy as “What is good for China , should be good for PwC”, adding “within our limited resources”. By all accounts, he has been remarkably successful – with no sign of let-up: “We realize the need to train our clients, to let them know about the things they need. This is our investment. We have always believed we will get paid back in the long-term.” The depth of those connections can be seen in Ng's various advisory roles: a founding member of the Shanghai government's International Business Leaders Advisory Council as well as adviser to the governments of Wuxi, Qingdao and Tianjin. In 1998 Xu Kuangdi, the then mayor of Shanghai, presented Ng with the Magnolia Gold Award, the highest honor for a foreigner in Shanghai, for his contributions to the development of Shanghai.