After the May 12 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan Province, wives would ask their husbands who had to go to Chengdu on business to take biscuits, instant noodles and water because they believed the city must have been battered by the quake and did not have enough food or clean water.

As a matter of fact, about one month after the quake, cinemas, museums, libraries, concert halls, restaurants and bars in Chengdu had reopened and were back to normal.

The average occupancy rate of Chengdu's star-rated hotels has risen to 60 percent and some have even reached 80 percent, higher than before the quake, said Deng Gongli, chief of the city's tourism administration.

In June, sales at famous retailers in the city such as Wangfujing Department Store, Ito-Yokado, Suning Appliance and GOME Electrical Appliances Holdings picked up, reaching between 80 and 90 percent of their pre-quake levels.

Twenty-three foreign-funded enterprises have registered in Chengdu after the earthquake, with an investment of nearly US$134 million.

Zhou Mi, deputy chief of the Chengdu committee for the promotion of investment, said: "Chengdu remains the commercial center of southwest China."

Ge Honglin, mayor of Chengdu, describes Chengdu as a vital economic hub, an inland city with great potential for economic growth as China promotes the development of its western areas.

Land of abundance

Chengdu is traditionally known as the "land of abundance" thanks to the construction of Dujiangyan, the world's oldest irrigation project still in operation.

A tea preparation ceremony in a restaurant in Chengdu

Two millennia ago, the Chengdu plain suffered from incessant flooding of Minjiang, a tributary of the Yangtze River, during the summer, while it was stricken with drought in the winter.

Li Bing, governor of Sichuan at the time, started harnessing the river by launching the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project around 256 BC.

When the project was completed, it fed a grid of canals that irrigated 160,000 hectares of arable land on the Chengdu plain. That area has since increased to 670,000 hectares.

The plain has stayed more or less free of floods and drought for more than 2,000 years, and has earned Sichuan the reputation of being a "land of abundance". The Chengdu plain has remained one of China's most important agricultural regions for centuries.

In the absence of a dam, experts have hailed the project as one of the world's most impressive hydraulic engineering projects.

Together with Mount Qingcheng, the project was listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 2000 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Mount Qingcheng, 16 km from Dujiangyan, which is known as "the most tranquil place under heaven," is the birthplace of Taoism, China's only indigenous religion.

Chengdu has been a land of abundance throughout history because of its developed agriculture and lack of conflict. Located in the Sichuan Basin and surrounded by rolling mountains, invading troops found Sichuan inaccessible in ancient times.

The city is famous for pandas, romantic poets, spicy hotpot and, more recently, bars and a relaxed atmosphere.

"It is a mix of Frankfurt, Paris and Chicago," Mayor Ge said.

Ge, a former vice president of Shanghai-based Baosteel Group, one of China's largest State-owned enterprises, says his last job trained him to think like an entrepreneur. In fact, the Shanghai native has on many occasions acted as Chengdu's main PR man.

He has jumped on opportunities to promote the city to foreign investors, attending the American Chamber of Commerce in China's annual dinner last year, the only mayor to be present. At the 30th Anniversary of the Canada-China Business Council, he gave a lecture and held several meetings with Canadian businesspeople.