Self-made millionaire spent around £4m providing luxury housing and free meals for villagers because he says they were kind to him when he grew up in the poor area.

A rags-to-riches millionaire returned to the slum where he grew up and bulldozed the place.

But then the kindly philanthropist built new £4m apartments for the locals to live and is paying for the elderly to be fed every day.

Xiong Shuihua grew up in a shanty town that was little more than wooden huts and dirt roads but through grafting away in the steel industry he has become a multi-millionaire.

(Multimillionaire former resident Xiong Shuihua built luxury houses for everyone in the village.)

Now the tycoon has housed 76 families, given villas to 18 families and is funding three meals a day for the elderly.

Mr Xiong says it’s the least he can do because the locals were so kind to him when he was growing up.

He said: “I earned more money than I knew what to do with it, and I didn’t want to forget my roots. I always pay my debts, and wanted to make sure the people helped me when I was younger and my family were paid back.”

Shuihua was born in the Xiongkeng village in the city of Xinyu in southern China’s Jiangxi province and said that his family had always been well looked after, and helped and supported by the other villagers.

(The luxury accomodation built by multimillionaire former resident Xiong Shuihua for everyone in the village.)

So when 54-year-old Shuihua ended up becoming a multimillionaire he decided to repay their kindness, by returning to the village and giving everybody a place of their own to live.

Elderly local Qiong Chu, 75, said: “I remember his parents, they were kind-hearted people who cared very much for others, and it’s great that their son has inherited that kindness.”

The multimillionaire made his money first of all in the construction industry and later by getting involved in the steel trade.

[via Daily Mirror]