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As China's economy continues to boom, Chinese people are being given more opportunities to pursue success and wealth.

And even foreigners are eying the fast-growing country for business opportunities.

Zheng Zhong, a businessman in the booming southern city of Shenzhen, spent a decade making his dream come true. He has turned his small studio into a design and engineering company that records an annual revenue of 400 million yuan (US$49.3 million).

In 1993, he gave up his job as a lecturer at Guangzhou Academy of Art, a leading art school in China, and ran a studio with two classmates in Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone, where economic growth rocketed

"It wasn't an impulse decision. I wanted to do something more exciting and be faced with more challenges, so I quit my job and set up my own company," Zheng recalled.

It was a prime time in Shenzhen, which was quickly transforming from a small fishing town into a modern city, due to the country's incentive reform and opening policy. They employed several young designers and rented a hotel room, where they worked day and night.

Their luck turned around in 1996, when he won the first big design and engineering bid in Changzhou of Jiangsu Province, for a State-owned bank.

The million yuan project generated his first big fortune, and he quickly expanded his business and registered two companies, Asian Time Engineering (HK) Ltd, and a design company in Hong Kong in 1999.

The talented interior designer, in his early 40s, is still leading his 15-member design team, including six overseas designers from Hong Kong and Singapore.

He said the government had created an open and innovative environment over the years, which has attracted a pool of talent from other mainland cities to refresh the local interior design industry.

The Shenzhen municipal government launched the idea of turning the city into a "Metropolis of Design" in early 2004. "Shenzhen designers have since earned a reputation for top quality work," Zheng said.

He suggested the government promote more international exchanges between the local interior design industry and their foreign counterparts and further regulate industrial discipline to ensure fair play.

Like Zheng, Simon Stokes, an experienced financial services consultant from Australia, moved to China four years ago to achieve his career ambitions.

At that time, Simon had just completed work on a consulting assignment for a multinational financial institution in Singapore.

Then on September 11 2001, the World Trade Center tragedy occurred in New York, which caused a damaging domino-effect on the world economy, including the consulting business.

With many full-time managers anxious about their own jobs, it was not surprising that consulting opportunities dried-up quickly in Singapore and other Western countries in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Simon had to find a new place to move to continue providing his professional services. And China was his number one choice.

"I had been thinking about China since 1999 as I felt the country could provide many worthwhile opportunities with its entry into the World Trade Organization. My commercial focus is providing consulting services to financial institutions in China and Asia. So Shanghai as China's financial services centre was an obvious place for me to live and work".

Simon started fairly slowly. It took him almost two years to begin to understand Chinese business culture and build-up his network of key contacts.

Gradually his efforts are paying off. The first deal came from Hong Kong. A big European global financial institution engaged him to provide professional advice to its offices in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Now Simon has established himself as a sought-after financial services consultant in Shanghai. His clients include foreign government offices, financial institutions and multinational companies.

"Working in China is enormously interesting and rewarding; I travel extensively and my time is satisfyingly full," he said.

Shanghai is a magnet not only to overseas professionals like Simon Stokes who are now pursuing successful careers in China, but also to thousands of foreign companies keen on expanding into the growing China marketplace.

(China Daily April 3, 2006)