It was just after he had vaulted to the top of China’s rich list in 2005 that Huang Guangyu gave The Times an interview. The self-made billionaire’s career is a classic rags-to-riches tale, but unlike many of China’s nouveaux riches Mr Huang was unfailingly polite, at pains to be considerate and to make his guest feel comfortable.

He smokes, but throughout an interview lasting more than an hour the cigarettes on his neat desk lay untouched.

It was a display of unusual restraint in a country where officials and businessmen rarely bother to ask if their habit offends.

Even though his office, high in the Eagle Plaza skyscraper that he owns with his brother, is enormous and his desk a presidential crescent, he seemed genuinely uninterested in personal wealth.

Mr Huang lives with his wife and son in an ordinary apartment and said that he had no plans to use his riches to pay the fines associated with having a second child in China. He appeared embarrassed when asked what kind of car he owns - a Mercedes - and he only has one, he added quickly.

He works 13-hour days and holidays bore him - although he confessed that when travelling overseas he liked to browse in local electronics retailers to see how others run their stores. During a visit to London he enjoyed walking and looking at the old buildings but was still eager to get home and back to work.

The most surprising moment in our interview came at the end. He accompanied me to the lift and waited, bidding goodbye only as the doors closed. His courtesy gave me “face”, indicating that despite being China’s richest man, he still regarded me as his equal in this deeply hierarchical society.