2016年CRI Hangzhou seeks to become international city

 

Hosting this year's G20 Summit is being viewed by municipal officials in Hangzhou as their best chance to promote the city's image as an international destination.

Professor Chen Jianjun with the School of Public Affairs at Zhejiang University says Hangzhou already has a lot to offer.

"The city has the ability to become a global attraction for leisure, sightseeing, international conferences and exhibitions, in addition to Hangzhou's position as a global center for the Internet industry. The city is also focusing on developing its cultural creativity industry."

Officials say they hope Hangzhou can not only attract more investment and business opportunities, but also more high-level, talented professionals from other countries.

Lucas Rondez, a Swiss businessman who has lived in China for nearly a decade, says the local government's initiatives are already making Hangzhou an appealing destination for foreigners to live in.

"I would love to see more entrepreneurs from abroad choosing Hangzhou as the place to base, maybe not Shanghai and Beijing. Because here is very attractive. There's like a lot of government support. There's a lot of companies which you can talk together, communicate and share experiences. So I would love to see more and more people coming here to start a business."

Lucas Rondez is the CEO of a company which has created an app called "Nihao," or "Hello" in Mandarin¹, which is often the first Chinese phrase foreigners learn to speak.

The app itself is designed to try to make life for foreigners living in China much easier.

Rondez says their concept is to try to make China more accessible to the rest of the world.

"A lot of people coming to China with a lot of dreams in the mind. I mean it's no longer 'US dreams', more of the 'Chinese dreams' today. So a lot of people come here with a lot of expectation. They don't know maybe exactly what they want to do. So they want to find a path in the career, maybe a way to make a new company, or a start-up."

Apart from the language barriers, Rondez suggests one of the things officials in Hangzhou might focus on is making the service sector² more accessible to foreigners.

"I think we are really at the beginning. It takes time to make a city well known abroad. I think through the G20, through the Asian Games. It is the best way. It's definitely the incredible way to make it well known abroad. But I think on the infrastructure³, on the opportunities and everything. We are at the early beginning to make the city more international."

Zhejiang is known within China as being one of the cradles of this country's burgeoning⁴ private sector.

Nearly 140 out of China's top 500 private companies are located in Zhejiang.

Over 6 million merchants from the province are doing business across China, while almost 2 million others are doing business in different parts of the world.

For CRI, I'm Xie Cheng.

1 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

2 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

3 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

4 burgeoning   

adj.迅速成长的，迅速发展的v.发芽，抽枝( burgeon的现在分词 )；迅速发展；发（芽），抽（枝）

参考例句：

• Our company's business is burgeoning now. 我们公司的业务现在发展很迅速。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These efforts were insufficient to contain the burgeoning crisis. 这些努力不足以抑制迅速扩散的危机。 来自辞典例句