Shantou offering a glimpse of what to expect in future

Workers at a toy factory in Shantou, Guangdong province. By June this year, the city had approved nearly 6,000 foreign direct investment projects. [Photo/Xinhua]

Walking around the wholesale clothing market near Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, it doesn't take long to spot sellers from Shantou.

They speak Cantonese or Putonghua with strong local Chaoshan accents - a dialect my daughter and I have been learning for years from my wife, who was born in a fishing village near the eastern coastal city.

Local officials often proudly say there are actually three Shantous - one for locals, one for people working in big cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and a third for the many thousands of its former residents living overseas.

In addition to their strong accents, these hard-working people are also characterized by their willingness and ability to settle comfortably away from home, more often than not, working for themselves rather than for someone else.

A popular pastime for Shantou people is running grocery stores in the Pearl River Delta cities, but in that Guangzhou clothes market, nearly 80 percent of the people selling their goods are from Shantou.

Since China's reform and opening-up process started in the 1980s, this sharp, smart business acumen has earned some Shantou people vast fortunes.

And now Zheng Renhao, the city's mayor, is wanting them to come home, "and is making every effort possible to attract them back", bringing their investments with them.

Zheng told me, in particular, he wants Shantou's very own pilot cultural and economic development zone - created on 20 square kilometers of reclaimed land - to become its "investment platform", especially for overseas Chinese investors.

Official figures suggest there are some 60 million overseas Chinese living in 198 countries, of which 10 million originate from Shantou and Chaozhou, together commonly known as Chaoshan. Around 3.5 million overseas Shantou Chinese currently live and work across Southeast Asia.

"Our people living overseas have made a huge contribution to the city's overall development in the last two decades, and we have made full use of their investments," said Zheng, "but they are now more needed than ever, as the city heads toward a new phase in its economic development."

According to figures from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office at the State Council, 60 percent of foreign investment into China has come from overseas Chinese businesses since the country's reform and opening-up process began.