"What word would you use to describe the year 2006 in China?" The word "promising" was the answer most often given when Xinhua interviewed foreigners on Internet forums and in the street.

 

As the world's rich economies show signs of slowing down, the global economy is being driven more than ever before by strong performance in developing countries, especially China, the World Bank says in its latest report on the global economy.

 

For the more than 150,000 foreigners who work and live in China, China's boom is something they can feel in their everyday life. Their hope is that the auspicious year of the Golden Pig in 2007 will see the country continue its peaceful rise.

 

Xinhua made a series of interviews of foreigners in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, to understand how foreigners saw China in 2006.

 

Investment paradise

 

Sho Minekawa, general manager of the Sino-Japan joint venture Guangzhou Honda Automobile Co., Ltd., has witnessed China's transition from a "kingdom of bicycles" into a "new world of cars" during his three-year career in China.

 

The company based in the capital of south China's Guangdong Province produced and sold 260,000 sedans this year, and has raised its target for next year to 310,000 sedans.

 

Car sales in China have grown 29 percent this year to more than 4 million, and China will soon overtake Japan to become the world's second-biggest car market after America.

 

Minekawa thinks 2007 will see Sino-foreign car ventures further lift their local development and innovation capacities. Gone are the days when Chinese auto manufacturers were simply assemblers of foreign brands. Guangdong Honda will found a new research center in Guangdong in 2007.

 

All the big carmakers from Europe, America, Japan and Korea are represented in China. Volkswagen, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Nissan have already built their own research or technical centers in the country.

 

Having attracted more foreign investment than any other developing country for 15 consecutive years, China now has about US$1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

 

Foreigners attracted by China's housing market

 

Daniel Cotterall, a foreign media worker living in Beijing, is thinking of joining the house-buying spree in Beijing.

 

In 2006, Daniel made the big decision to make Beijing his home for the next 20 years, and brought his youngest son to live with him.

 

"I want to have a home in the city where I live," said the New Zealander, who has been in China a little over a year, and who has fallen under the spell of life in Beijing.

 

Now living in a rented apartment in an old downtown community, Daniel enjoys cosy neighborhood relations and the convenience of having all the basic amenities on his doorstep.

 

"Beijing is full of energy and opportunities. Ideally, I will be able to buy a house we can live in. If not, I will buy a property as an investment," said the journalist in his 40s.

 

Daniel is keen to buy a renovated warehouse or a courtyard house. But he worries about the restrictions that prevent foreign buyers acquiring that kind of old asset, which often involve property rights wrangles.

 

In big Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai, new luxury real estate projects target Chinese nouveaux riches and foreign customers.

 

To Daniel, China's economy is strong enough to continuously drive up housing prices. The 2008 Beijing Olympics will simply consolidate the momentum for another decade, he said.

 

His only worry is the security of private property. "I think I will make the purchase after China's new Property Law is enacted next year, because it will give better protection to private property, so that I don't have worry that my property will be demolished someday, maybe due to new urban planning or road construction," said Daniel.

 

Opportunity and pressure for foreign bankers

 

Noyan Rona, chief representative of the Turkishy Garanti Bank to China, was recently commended by China Unionpay, China's national electronic payment network, for his contribution to the upcoming launch of Chinese Unionpay cards in Turkey.

 

With equal market access, the Turkish bank card holders will soon enjoy the convenience of being able to pay with their own cards when making purchases in China.

 

Rona is among some 60,000 foreigners working in China's financial center of Shanghai. He said that local competition from foreign banks is getting fierce.

 

By the end of September, foreign banks will have set up 283 representative offices or subsidiaries in China. Foreign banks will compete fully in the Chinese market in 2007, said Rona.

 

China's new regulations on the administration of foreign-funded banks took effect this month, opening the country's banking sector fully to foreign competitors.

 

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) on December 24 gave nine foreign banks, including HSBC, Hang Seng Bank, Citigroup and Standard Chartered Bank, permission to incorporate subsidiaries on the mainland.

 

Chinese and foreign banks are now governed by a unified regulatory system, which will intensify competition in the banking sector and give customers more choice, said Rona.

 

The total assets of foreign-funded banks in China reached US$105.1 billion at the end of September, accounting for 1.9 percent of the total assets of all banking institutions in the country, according to CBRC statistics.

 

Pollution darkens the horizon

 

Holly Naylor traveled to China six times before finally settling in Beijing for a long-term stay in 2006. But now she frets about whether her health will allow her to stay as long as she plans.

 

"One day in spring, I woke up and rushed out of the room, shouting 'Oh my God, the house is on fire!' In fact it was simply the smell of pollution that woke me and made me feel like I was choking," said the asthma sufferer.

 

A public relations staffer working for Hong Kong-based Chi-Heng Foundation, Naylor's work helps AIDS-affected children and adults in China. She finds her work in Beijing rewarding, but the city air is so smoggy that her asthma is worsening.

 

Heavy industry, sandstorms and exhaust fumes from the fast-rising number of cars contribute to grey, smoggy days in major Chinese cities, while most roads are choked with slow-moving traffic.

 

In Xinhua's interviews of foreign reporters, pollution resulting from industrialization and environmental accidents was constantly cited as a blot on China's image and a negative factor in terms of the country's international status.

 

As it wakes up to the huge cost in environmental degradation it is paying for its rapid economic growth, China is now more than ever before eager to borrow solutions from other countries to limit the environmental fallout from economic development.

 

Corrado Clini was the first foreigner to be nominated for Beijing's Environmental Protection Star awards this year. The Italian environmental protection official helped Beijing build a solar energy system for the city's Olympic Village, supplying hot water and electricity for the Games in 2008 and beyond.

 

Olympics bolster nation's aspiration

 

The facelift that Beijing is undergoing for China's first-ever Olympic Games is by far the most extensive urban maintenance operation since Kublai Khan designed the old city in the 13th century, said Laurence Brahm, a veteran China watcher.

 

However, foreigners wonder whether some of China's less attractive social habits -- like spitting and jumping queues -- can be upgraded as quickly as the Olympic infrastructure estimated to cost US$40 billion.

 

"Beijing's preparations for the Olympics are more than just huge, bold physical structures. Social and cultural preparations are afoot too," said Sylvia Jurcynska, a broadcast services manager with Beijing Olympic Broadcasting.

 

Based in Beijing for six months, the upbeat Polish woman said she is proud to serve for European broadcasters on behalf of the Beijing Olympic Committee. A global audience of 4.5 billion viewers is expected to tune in to watch the Games in 2008.

 

More than 5,000 reporters have registered to come to China to cover the Games. However, when Xinhua surveyed foreign reporters attending the Olympic World Press Briefing in Beijing in September, more than half said they were more interested in political reforms and in the social development of the emerging Asian power than in its construction boom.

 

Foreign media reports on China in 2006 focused on China's huge capital market, the burgeoning Chinese middle class, the income gap between the haves and the have-nots, corruption and environmental problems.

 

"The world is watching China. With the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China will step squarely onto center stage," said Peter V. Ueberroth, Chairman of the US Olympic Committee.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 31, 2006)