Hi-tech dreams - and a few risks - amid the mountainous scenery of Guilin

Until a few months ago, Wei Saihua's job as a tour guide made her the envy of her peers. But that did not keep her from abandoning her career to take one of the biggest gambles of her life, betting hundreds of thousands of yuan on the future of Guilin .

In two months, the grain depot she bought for 600,000 yuan (HK$674,500) will be transformed into a two-storey hotel. Her plans for the place include charging 300 yuan per night, about a third of the standard rate in the city's centre, and rooms decorated with typical Guilin scenes. They will also have internet access, a combination of local culture and technology that Ms Wei believes will succeed.

And she is not the only one. Stories like hers are being repeated across Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as local officials and professionals come up with ways to put a business-friendly, hi-tech sheen on this naturally beautiful region.

Demand for hotels and restaurants has grown in Guilin over the past few years as the city's downtown population has multiplied. Alongside the many tourists, one now finds information technology professionals who have answered provincial authorities' call to transform the city into a technology hub.

On May 12, China Great Wall Computer Shenzhen agreed to build its next factory in Guilin. The company hopes the plant will turn out goods worth more than 1 billion yuan once it hits full production in three years. The local government in April started work on 17 hi-tech and industrial parks that will cost more than 3 billion yuan.

Guilin is just one city helping transform Guangxi's economy from one based on mining, agriculture and light industries such as silk making and sugar, to one more reliant on heavy and advanced manufacturing.