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Coastal pearl earns a name in its own right

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LONG gone are the days when the name Beihai conjured only visions of the artificial lake in the namesake park in Beijing, or the oil field.

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Beihai the open coastal city - whose economy has taken off in recent years on the back of an exuberant real-estate sector - is very well known to most of Hong Kong's property magnates including Li Ka-shing.

The port in Guangxi province in southwest China was one of the first batch of 14 open coastal cities named in 1984.

''A late-emerging, outstanding city with a future beyond limits'' was the comment on it from Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin.

''Our ultimate goal is to become a cosmopolitan centre by the year 2010,'' said Vice-Mayor Jiang Tianchen.

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''Almost all of the famous, big enterprises have come, including Kerry Properties and Hong Kong Parkview of Hong Kong. Investors from the United States, Australia and Japan also have come to study the investment potential,'' he said.

''International dignitaries such as Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew have also visited the city,'' he added. ''About 400 senior cadres from Beijing also came.'' Beihai offers an international access for southwest China which has a population of more than 200 million and area of 2.4 million sq m. ''It is the most important exporting port in this part of the country and has a long history of 2,000 years,'' he said.

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