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All Hangzhou means G20 Summit: Big, small businesses, natives get in tune for the world

By Ikenna Emewu (People's Daily Online)    16:48, September 04, 2016

Visit the city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province capital in East China this period and see how a people could harness the opportunity on their hands for maximal economic good.

Taking a trip around the flashy city that looks brand new dressed for the world, you would recognize that the people are really set and took their time to get in tune with the benefits of the business on their hands today – the G20 Summit.

Having visited the city in May for the 100 Days Countdown media event and being there now, it’s a different Hangzhou from what it was four months ago. The city actually wears a new look and very set.

As at Saturday when the world leaders arrived, the mood of the city further took a different turn – busier, more conscious of security and racial mixed.

Friday night after most of the international media persons had arrived Hangzhou, the city had started getting rowdier but with situation of the security fairly relaxed but for the checks and re-checks at the hotels for every move.

At the downtown Hangzhou Friday night when People’s Daily stepped out to feel the pulse of the city, the natives were busy in their hundreds like in dress rehearsal at the Renmin Guangchang (Peoples Square).

It was a bevy crowd where the entire city seemed to have emptied into with their loud music blaring late into the night and the people swaying to the rhythm of the largest pool of world citizens they awaited. They danced away in synchronized moves and cheerfully greeted the foreigners among them.

New look Hangzhou

It looked like the city of Hangzhou had passed all their residents through tutorials on courtesy and cordial felicitations. Everyone looked cheerful and with some touch of social grace to their pleasantries as you walk by. Even the kids were not left out of this as their mothers nudged and urged them to greet the visitors and have photo shots with them.

But the following day saw Hangzhou pick up slightly in a different direction. Things came at faster pulse and got somehow hurried as the leaders started arriving. It was towards late evening that most of them came into the city with the US President Barack Obama calling at around 3pm. His arrival was followed closely by that of the Egyptian president, one of the African leaders invited by China to take part in the session it announced had much in store to discuss for the benefit of the smaller economies of the world. Next to Egypt was Saudi Arabia contingent. Saudi Arabia is a member of the G20.

From every reason, Hangzhou was up to a huge task of entertaining the leaders of about 65% of the world population that control about 88% of the global economy.

While the waiting was on, the team of African and East Asian journalists was taken out for some official visits that actually turned out not just fun, but some key business trip that actually was a core component of the G20 Summit, or just the hidden or not-too-known component of it.

Cuisine Museum in Eco Park

During the outing that centered around the prominent scenic West Lake, a major landmark of Hangzhou, People’s Daily found that the entire city had been wired into the cell and structure of the summit. Everything had fallen in line as the trips later proved. The business firms of Hangzhou had all readied themselves to have a piece of the action of at least marketing and positioning themselves for the benefit of the Summit.

The first call of the media team was the Jiangyangfan Eco Park located at the east side of the Lake and the prominent river and with mountains to the opposite sides. The park is an ecological reserve in a swampy area by the side of the hill which the tour guide explained to be one of the major attractions of the city today as a recreation spot where even researchers and families gather for study and leisure. She narrated that the park is developed in line with a resolve to preserve the natural ecology of Hangzhou and has no artificial interference in the floral and faunal composition. Within the park is also located the Hangzhou Cuisine Museum.

Away from the museum, the team saw the business side of the quiet neighbourgood that is located in the Yuhuang Shannan Fund Town located in a former train maintenance yard and with a focus to provide business service support.

The spot boasted it runs the “capital cluster that creates China’s number one fund town whose top service builds efficient ecological environment for finance.”

Tour guide at Fund Town

It is a financial information centre, a venture service capital centre, private equity fund research base and fund managers’ club. Furthermore, the Town also provides academic exchange and cooperation, administrative services, financial talents cultivation and a Zhejiang financiers club.

The seriousness of the town and its business was demonstrated in the elaborate reception the natives and operators organised to market themselves that involved all the leaders of the community.

The Zheyin Capital, a financial company founded last year with asset base of half a billion yuan was not left out. The modest company located in the same neighbourhood with a wonderful business environment showcased what it is made of and all their services tend towards financing and investment. The other company also of enormous business bent and capital base was just described and known as Refine.

The way they all prepared to take advantage of the Summit to further their operations and be part of the world gathering was simply amazing.

New look Hangzhou

It was a sign that beyond the mere gathering of the world leaders, the entire Hangzhou had all got their houses in order and targeted to harvest the most they could from the summit as very rare opportunity they would not know when next it could come their way again.

Emewu is senior editor of The Sun Newspaper, Nigeria, Fellow of the China Public Diplomacy on Media Exchange, Beijing and intern with People’s Daily ([email protected]

(For the latest China news, Please follow People's Daily on Twitter and Facebook)(Editor: Wu Chengliang,Bianji)

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