Seven years ago, Loic Leclercq, the co-founder of an interior designing company in Shanghai, made a "crazy decision"-to leave the city known as China's finance capital and open a French restaurant on the southeast-em coast He relocated to Xiamen, a port city in Fujian Province, and in four years, has a restaurant up and running as well as a bakery and a wine bar. 'The whole process of starting a business in Xiamen was pretty easy," the 34-year-old French entrepreneur said.Once a sleepy city with fishing as its main industry, Xiamen was known as Egret Island, a picturesque destination home to the great white egret. But the identity changed after China introduced the historic reform and opening up in 1978 that would eventually transform it into the second biggest economy in the world. The reform led to the establishment of the first batch of four special economic zones, Xiamen being one of them. In April 2015, the China (Fujian) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) opened and Xiamen became part of it The proximity to Taiwan is its USP, with businesses from Taiwan preferring to invest in Xiamen.
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