The board chairman of Sichuan Changhong Electric Co, a leading appliance manufacturer, has been accused of abusing his power and causing large losses to the State-owned company, domestic news portal thepaper.cn reported on Tuesday.
Citing a real-name report by Yang Xuejun, deputy secretary of the company's Party committee, thepaper.cn said that Zhao Yong, who has been president of the company since 2004, "illegally and arbitrarily" decided in 2009 to invest 2 billion yuan ($322.2 million) in a plasma project in Hefei, East China's Anhui Province without board approval.
At the time, the report said, many other international electronics companies such as Japan-based Sony and Toshiba were abandoning the "unpromising" sector.
Zheng Dongfeng, deputy secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Discipline Inspection Commission of Sichuan Province, was quoted by thepaper.cn as saying that the commission would gather information and handle the case according to procedure.
The project lost 1 billion yuan in three years, the portal said.
Global demand for plasma display panels (PDP) is weak, as cheaper and more energy-efficient liquid crystal display TVs are preferred in the market, said media reports.
A report from industry tracker NPD DisplaySearch estimated that global PDP TV shipments in 2015 would plunge to 500,000 from 5.2 million in 2014 and 10.3 million in 2013.
Yang claimed that Zhao's decision had caused the company to lose billions of yuan.
Changhong in the first quarter of 2015 made a net profit of 17.3 million yuan.
