FORMER Jardine Cycle & Carriage (Jardine C&C) executive Boon Yoon Chiang has passed away on Dec 10 following "a short illness" at the age of 87.

Better known by the business community as YC Boon, he was chairman of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce (SICC) from 1988 to 1990. Aside from being the chamber's first Asian Singaporean chairman, he was also its longest-serving board member who "gave 35 years of sterling service" to the chamber and its members, said SICC chief executive Victor Mills in an emailed tribute sent to The Business Times (BT) on Monday (Dec 13).

Mills noted Boon's active contributions to the work of several organisations including the Singapore National Employers Federation, the National Wage Council and the CPF (Central Provident Fund) Board.

Boon was also formerly president of the long-defunct Singapore Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, which dissolved in 2002 before the Singapore Business Federation was launched in the same year to succeed it.

Mills described Boon as an astute businessman and community doyen as well as a "bearer of collaboration and of connecting people for more than 50 years" during the decades of his career, which he started as a journalist and later rose to become chairman of Jardine Matheson in Singapore.

"We remember YC first and foremost as a gentleman for whom good manners, integrity and loyalty counted most in people… Mrs Boon (his wife) has told me that right up to his recent, short illness he was still connecting people to help them succeed. He was our elder statesman whom we all looked up to and respected," said Mills.

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"We all miss him but we also always remember him with admiration, fondness and gratitude. Our lives were all richer for knowing him and we all, in our own small ways, will ensure his legacy endures," he added.

Most notably, Boon was deputy chairman of Jardine C&C - the investment holding company of the Jardine Matheson Group in South-east Asia - since 1993, and an independent director of Food Empire Holdings from 2005. He retired from his roles at both mainboard-listed companies in late 2019.

Jardine C&C recounted its late former deputy chairman as a well-established figure within the local business ecosystem, who was also the "front and centre" of the group's major milestones in Singapore.

"YC was a passionate champion of community initiatives, a strong advocate for the Jardine Scholarship and Mindset, our mental health charity. Our high regard for YC endures; we will always be grateful for his significant contribution to Jardines over the years and his warm friendship," a Jardine C&C spokesperson told BT.