Eastern Chinese city ready to embrace G20 next year

As the birthplace of Jack Ma and his e-commerce empire Alibaba, Hangzhou has been dubbed China's "e-commerce capital." It is estimated that the city, with a population of nearly 8.9 million, has about 120,000 software developers and hundreds of thousands of young entrepreneurs, many of whom are doing Internet-related business.

"Dream Town" is a cluster of new Internet-based firms. Zhou Kunpeng, in his 20s, set up an online platform selling foods and daily necessities to college students last year. His business has spread to more than 1,800 universities in 167 Chinese cities.

"The entrepreneurial environment here is good. As long as you have great ideas and teams, it is easy to find investment and market," Zhou said.

Meanwhile, the city is also pioneering an upgrade of traditional manufacturing. Zong Qinghou, the billionaire beverage tycoon of Hangzhou Wahaha Group, said, as the leading drinks maker in China the company is always exploring new technology and plans to acquire a robotics companies to further sharpen its competitive edge.

Zhejiang ranked fourth among the 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland in terms of GDP in 2014. Hangzhou has seen its GDP exceeding 449.8 billion yuan (over 70 billion U. S. dollars) during the first half of this year, registering an annual growth of 10.3 percent, ranking it first among cities in the well-off Yangtze River delta.

Zhang Handong, head of Zhejiang Academy of Commerce, said the G20 will be a golden opportunity for Hangzhou to further boost its development. "The summit will make Hangzhou better known to the international community, which may bring more overseas investment to the city."

He also suggested Hangzhou strengthen its efforts on environmental protection and infrastructure improvement when preparing for the event.