Biography of President Eric Y. Ng

updated March 2007

Eric Y. Ng is the current President of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), New York Chinese School and Chinatown Daycare Center. He is a well-known community leader and businessman in Chinatown.

Born in Toishan, China, he moved to Hong Kong in 1953 and spent his childhood there. He attended Tak Ming Middle School in Hong Kong, and he is currently President of the Tak Ming Alumni Association in Eastern USA.

After immigrating to the United States in 1970, Mr. Ng was employed at numerous American companies while attending evening classes at New York City Community College and Bernard Baruch College.  During weekends, Mr. Ng worked part-time at Genie Fortune Cookies, Inc. in Chinatown where he learned the technique of making fortune cookies. In 1976, he and a partner bought the business.

In 1978, he started a new business called Smart Bakery and imported the first automatic machine for producing fortune cookies in New York City. He was also the first person to print lucky lottery numbers in fortune cookies in New York City. In 1982, Mr. Ng started Smart Distributor Company, a wholesale business mainly dealing in selling coffee and eggs. From 1983 to 1988, he also worked as a licensed Real Estate sales agent.

Mr. Ng has been a community leader for more than 10 years. He has served as President of Hoy Sun Ning Yung Benevolent Association, Chinese Freemasons, Hip Sing Association and Eng Suey Sun Association. He is also the current President of the World Eng Family Benevolent Association.

Mr. Ng was inaugurated in March 2006 for his two year term as President of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, Chinatown’s oldest community service organization which represents many leading business and fraternal organizations and associations in the community. During his term as President of the CCBA, Mr. Ng has improved the community in many ways.  He solidified relations between the CCBA and different City departments and agencies to solve many on-going problems in Chinatown, including insufficient parking spaces, illegal enforcement of parking regulations, confusing sanitation enforcement regulations, etc.  Working closely with the NYPD, the NYPD community affairs bureau now hosts monthly seminars on different safety topics at the CCBA. Mr. Ng’s efforts have resulted in the establishment of a direct channel to the government without language barriers.

Mr. Ng also works with many main stream organizations to provide services to the Chinese-American community, such as the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and the American Cancer Society.  In December 2006, CCBA and the American Red Cross of Greater New York signed a Memorandum of Understanding to coordinate programs in Chinatown that will help prepare and train the Chinese community for any kind of emergency. 

Mr. Ng has over 30 years of experience doing business in Chinatown, and he shared his experience with the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation, whose efforts succeeded in making Chinatown a much cleaner neighborhood starting in 2006.  He also works with the local hospitals to provide more seminars and medical screenings for the community.

Mr. Ng is a world renowned stamp collector who has accumulated many valuable stamps from Hong Kong for his collection, some of which date back to the Victorian Era. He regularly attends major stamp collecting events all over the world.

Mr. Ng lives in Queens with his three sons