Chongqing a key trade hub between Europe and Southeast Asia

Not only does Chongqing have road and rail links to Europe through Central Asia, but it is also linked to Southeast Asia through the Southern Transport Corridor, which links Chongqing by rail to Qinzhou Port in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, providing a gateway to Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore.

As a result, Europe also has a land connection now to Southeast Asia, with Chongqing as the vital link.

At the center of all this activity is the Liangjiang New Area, which occupies 1,205 square kilometers in Chongqing. It was the third State-level economic development zone of its kind when created in 2010.

In the meeting room of the new area's headquarters in the Jinshan building on Jinyu Avenue, Li Guang, the 55-year-old vice-president of the Liangjiang New Area Investment Invitation Group, says the European connection is very important now for Chongqing.

"The railway connection has been very important for development here. Goods can be transported in and out of Chongqing, and we have become a logistics hub for goods from the rest of China and also from Southeast Asia to Europe. We are building a new transferring center here to facilitate this. It is all part of the opening-up of the west of China as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative."

The Liangjiang New Area - whose name means two rivers, in reference to Chongqing's location at the convergence of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers - is home to 130 of Chongqing's 250 Fortune Global 500 companies. Last year, it attracted one-third, or $3.3 billion (2.8 billion euros; ￡2.5 billion), of the city's $10 billion of inward investment.

Li Guang is particularly eager to attract investment from across Europe, including Central and Eastern Europe.

"What we can offer European companies is the sort of market they might not be able to get at home, with the huge local population and also potentially the whole of China," he says.

"We are very open about companies coming in here wanting to form joint ventures or some form of cooperation arrangement. We want to attract top industrial teams to Chongqing," Li says.

Jefferson Wang, head of the Greater China government and economic development practice for management consultants A.T. Kearney, says Chongqing, despite being one of the biggest cities in the world, faces a challenge because it is not well-known internationally.