Wenzhou

Wenzhou is the third largest economy, in terms of GDP, in Zhejiang after Hangzhou and Ningbo Wenzhou. People are well known for their entrepreneurship. They excel in the trading of light consumer goods and have taken the initiations in shaping a private sector as China opens up and moves towards a market economy. In mid 1980s, a prominent Chinese sociologist described the city as "small commodities, large markets". The nationally famous "Wenzhou Model" always represents the dynamics of the private sector, but it also means specifically the development of small- scale.

Wenzhou's shoes, eyeglasses, locks, transformers, switches, lighters, razors and suits dominate the huge Chinese market, enjoying a 90-percent share in some cases, and are making an increasing impact internationally. Wenzhou is said to be the world's largest centre of shoe production; 70 per cent of the world's lighters are made here.

Offshore capital that has driven growth in such famous development zones as the Pearl River Delta near Hong Kong is as conspicuously uncommon.

Most Wenzhou entrepreneurs raise funds in an informal, handshake-based "old-ladies' bank" that began among friends and relatives and now circulates as much as $4-billion through the local economy. Theirs is the ultimate bootstrap city of the 21st century -- and an emphatic response to criticisms of China's economic development as overly dependent on state direction and foreign capital.

A local grade-school dropout who now heads a billion-dollar manufacturing enterprise

Proudly call "the Wenzhou spirit." Like many middle-aged Wenzhounese growing up in a region with too many people, scant agricultural land and minimal natural resources as a boy.

But Mr. Wang has clearly thought through the numbers, and his own career suggests that nothing in Wenzhou is impossible. "We used to be a Wenzhou company serving the domestic Chinese market, now we are a Chinese company serving the global market," he said. "That's a big market."