Chengdu and fort valley are sister cities. It’s an unlikely alliance between an emerging destination in western China and a small town in Georgia.

“Georgia peaches were once Chinese peaches,” said James Khoury, chairman of the Peach County Board of Commissioners, referencing an historic agricultural connection between the peaches of Chengdu and today’s Fort Valley peach crop.

This agricultural link has led Chengdu and Fort Valley to exchange official delegations during their respective peach festivals, where discussions are not just about peach pits. As Georgia Peach Festival president Rich Bennett put it, “We have some very exciting opportunities ahead in China, as do the Chinese here in Peach County.”

Fort Valley has been forging links with the hottest investment and business prospect in western China. Chengdu, the capital of populous Sichuan Province, is better known for its pandas than its peaches, but China’s “Panda City” is no longer just a dreamy backwater of thatched cottages where immortal Tang Dynasty poets once put their brushes to inkstone. Instead, firms such as Jones Land Lasalle Chengdu, a world leader in real estate and money management, are hailing Chengdu as “a fresh city with the strongest potential for development” in China, a place where labor costs are low and profits sky-high.

“Reputed as the best city to live in western China and with strong government policies and skills to attract investment, Chengdu has become one of the hottest destinations for investment on the Chinese mainland,” according to the 2007 Jones Land Lasalle survey. “Its ever uplifting reputation, excellent traffic infrastructure and attractive government policies for economic development prove that it will play an important part in the world economy.”

These are big words for any Chinese city to live up to, especially one so removed from the booming metropolises of Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, but Fortune magazine’s rankings of China’s top commercial cities place Chengdu firmly in the Top 10. In fact, Chengdu came in first as the least expensive place to run a business, third in development potential and seventh among China’s prime sites for start-ups.

While its population of 11 million makes it China’s fifth-largest city, Chengdu has always felt like a greener, less hurried version of China’s bustling eastern ports and industrial cities. In fact, China Daily recently ranked Chengdu as China’s fourth-most livable city. And the city is so environmentally aware these days that it has mandated all its taxi cabs be painted green by the end of 2008. Green zones are scheduled to cover 40 percent of the urban area in the next decade, and Chengdu already boasts 305 days per year of fine air quality, making it the envy of Beijing and Shanghai.

The livability factor comes as no surprise to those who have visited Chengdu, where bamboo parks, old shop houses, hotpot restaurants and riverside teahouses still hold sway. It is said that Chengdu residents truly know how to sit back and enjoy life’s sweet flow. Local tourism has been boosted by the nearby Giant Panda Research Base and Breeding Center, where visitors enjoy close-up encounters with scores of panda. Chengdu will soon enhance this key attraction by constructing a panda ecological park with a “World Panda Town” devoted to China’s wildlife ambassador. Visitors will be able to feed resident pandas, perform volunteer work for the new park and indulge in utter panda-monium.

While Chengdu is a pleasure to visit, it is even more intoxicating as a business address. Chengdu’s economy is led by the Internet technology and computer industries. Multinationals on hand include Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, IBM and Intel, which last year opened its second Chengdu chip-assembly plant. In China’s drive to build several world-class high-tech zones by 2010, Chengdu’s National High-Tech Development Zone already ranks in the top three. Fifteen major projects are currently slated to break ground in Chengdu, each with an investment exceeding $30 million, and the second phase of construction of the Tianfu Software Park is set for this year.

Symantec Corporation, the fourthlargest independent software supplier to the world, is opening its new research and development center in Tianfu Software Park. Symantec’s journey to Chengdu began when it partnered up with China’s Huawei Technologies to develop and distribute security and storage appliances to global telecommunications carriers. Chengdu seemed the perfect place for these computer-age giants from East and West to sign on together.

This year Chengdu is undertaking 37 technological projects to improve its four leading industries (digital information, bio-medicine, mechanical manufacturing and food processing). Chengdu’s four-milelong Technology Street on the first ring road, well known for its IT and computer sales, is expanding to encompass 400 companies. Special zones will be devoted to online games, DIY digital music and other electronic entertainment products. Pharmaceutical plants continue to be lured by Chengdu’s longtime position as a center of traditional Chinese medicine. Manufacturing in the city’s Furniture Industrial Park, where 2,000 firms are setting up shop, has made Chengdu the third-largest furniture producer in China. Automobile equipment manufacture is an even bigger industry; in the Qingyang District Industrial Development Zone production capacity is projected to reach $300 million in 2010 and more than $1 billion by 2015. Chengdu has also taken the reins as western China’s financial leader. Historically the first town in the world to use paper money, Chengdu is now letting Citigroup, Standard Chartered Bank, HSBC and other overseas bankers in on the action.

Even Sichuan’s renowned cuisine is firing up the economy. Last year Sichuan’s 40 leading catering enterprises accounted for more than $500 million in sales, a 25.6-percent jump. Most of the companies experienced their greatest surges through franchised outlets for traditional snacks and hotpot. Meanwhile, western China’s first drive-through McDonald’s opened in Chengdu last year. Located in the city’s Zhonghai International District, it is a 24-hour-a-day operation.

The rush of foreign investment into China’s western interior has made Chengdu a boomtown. At the close of 2007, Chengdu’s Mayor Ge Honglin announced the city’s gross domestic product had doubled over the past five years. 2007 saw foreign-invested industrial enterprises increase by 27.6 percent. The contractual value of direct foreign investment amounted to $2.63 billion, a 62.5-percent gain over 2006. Newly approved foreign investment projects numbered 334, and Chengdu’s overall exports for the year topped $5 billion, a 40-percent rise. Labor is 30 percent cheaper in Chengdu than in Shanghai, and economic growth is on an even faster track.

The rising tide has benefited locals and foreigners alike. Nearly twothirds of Chengdu’s residents enjoy what’s termed a “well-off lifestyle,” with disposable income ranging from about $2,000 to $8,000 per year. Cushman & Wakefield, a leading global real estate services firm which opened its Chengdu branch in July 2007, reports that Chengdu’s development of Grade A office buildings and retail space continues to pick up strength. And in December 2007 the city government launched a designated Web site, http://www.investchengdu.gov the I,nternet wing of the brand-new Chengdu Foreign Investors Service Center. The Center promises to provide overseas investors “with cordial, reliable, fast, efficient, all-around services” — a peach of a deal for those willing to head out west.

LODGING

SHANGRI-LA HOTEL CHENGDU

Chengdu’s newest downtown luxury hotel is already the city’s best. Situated on the oldest wine merchant lane in the world, its two towers overlook the Tang Dynasty Hejiang Pavilion and the Jinjiang River. Equipped with broadband Internet access and marble bathrooms, the 593 guestrooms are spacious, and those on the five Horizon executive floors even grander. Long-term business travelers can opt for one of 26 serviced apartments. The hotel’s health club provides indoor swimming, outdoor tennis courts and treatments at the CHI spa, while Café Z, with nine international food theaters, serves the city&r squo;s top buffet.$$$$
SHANGRI-LA HOTEL CHENGDU
9 Binjiang Dong Lu,
tel 86 28 8888 9999,
http://www.shangri-la.com/chengdu

CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL CHENGDU
Chengdu’s first upscale, international hotel, located a mile east of the central Tianfu Square, continues to be a top place to stay. The 434-room Crowne Plaza has everything running full bore, from its Clark Hatch Fitness Center with indoor swimming pool to its business center, CITS tour desk and executive floors. The two restaurants on the 25th floor have fine city views and even finer menus: the Japanese restaurant offering teppanyaki and sushi, the Mississippi Grill Room turning out Angus steaks.$$$
CROWNE PLAZA HOTEL CHENGDU
31 Zhongfu Lu,
tel 86 28 8678 6666,
http://www.crowneplaza.com/chengdu

SHERATON CHENGDU LIDO HOTEL
Due north of Chengdu’s center point (Tianfu Square and its statue of Chairman Mao), the Sheraton opened in 2000 as the city’s most luxurious hotel. It remains at the top in both service and facilities, which include a gym, indoor pool and high-speed Internet access in each of its 403 guestrooms. Six floors are designated as Club Level, with a special lounge area to serve business travelers. Non-smoking rooms are available, and the headline restaurant, Celestial Court, is an elegant space for Cantonese and Sichuan dishes.$$$
SHERATON CHENGDU LIDO HOTEL
15 Renmin Zhong Lu,
tel 86 28 8676 8999,
http://www.starwoodhotels.com/sheraton/chengdu

DINING

HUANG CHENG LAO MA

This is hotpot heaven. Its name translates roughly as “venerable woman in the royal city,” a reference to the proprietor of the original restaurant, whose outlets have now spread as far as Beijing, where three branches of Huang Cheng Lao Ma provide China’s capital with its best hotpot. A gas-fired pot in the center of each table is where diners dip a variety of raw vegetables and meats (including thick lamb slices, the house specialty) into hot oil. One has a choice of mild or spicy oils. Medicinal soups, tailored to specific ailments, are also on hand, and there is a charming atrium teahouse on the rooftop. Hot and fresh, this is Chinese fondue at its finest. $$-$$$$
HUANG CHENG LAO MA
20 Erhuan Nan Lu (2nd Ring Road South),
tel 86 28 8513 9999

BAGUO BUYI

Elegant and atmospheric, this is the perfect traditional setting in which to experience well-crafted Sichuan dishes. Although credit cards are accepted, there’s no English menu — but the costumed servers are experienced with outsiders, as Chengdu’s expatriate community, numbering about 3,000, is concentrated nearby. While Sichuan dishes are noted for the use of flat-out numbing chilies, the cuisine is actually quite various and delicately sophisticated. Newcomers should start with authentic versions of dandan mian (spicy noodles) and mapo dofu (tofu chunks in exquisite hot sauce) before venturing into the more rarified and expensive turf occupied by stewed soft-shell turtle and edible wild herbs.$$-$$$
BAGUO BUYI
20 Renmin Nan Lu,
tel 86 28 8553 1688,
http://www.baguobuyi.com

SHAMROCK PUB

For the past five years this pub has been the hub of expatriate life in Chengdu. Under new management, it is still a nexus where foreign residents, business travelers and independent tourists meet and mingle. The menu roves from bangers and mash to Angus streak, with all-day breakfasts and Guinness on tap. International sports dominate the TV screens, dartboards festoon the walls, and pool tables crowd the floors. While the food is good value for the money, the Shamrock’s prime allure is its crowd of shakers-and-movers. This is the place to pick up the latest business gossip, meet local expats over a beer and keep tabs on current projects, ranging from business matters to the Moon Bear wildlife rescue program.$-$$
SHAMROCK PUB
15 Renmin Nan Lu,
tel 86 28 8523 6158,
http://www.shamrockinchengdu.com

DIVERSIONS

No visit to Chengdu is complete without tea and pandas. For tea, try the outdoor teahouse under the ginkgo trees at Wenshu Temple (15 Wenshu Yuan Jie), the city’s Zen Buddhist complex. For pandas, the best viewing anywhere on earth is at the Giant Panda Research Base and Breeding Center (five miles northeast, tel 86 28 8351 6748), with its bamboo-forested enclosures, museum and panda nursery. One of downtown’s newer attractions is Jinli Ancient Street, a lane of cafés, shops and bars restored to the traditional Sichuan style. The gateway for travelers heading to Tibet, Chengdu has exotic attractions nearer by, including the Qing-dynasty village of Huanglongxi, the Great Buddha carved 13 centuries ago into the river cliffs at Leshan and the sacred mountain of Emei Shan, engraved with steep stone stairways and remote temples.

Just the Facts

Time Zone: GMT + 8

Phone Code: 86 China, 28 Chengdu

Currency: renminbi (RMB); basic unit is the yuan (CNY)

Entry/Exit Requirements: U.S. citizens require a passport valid for at least six months beyond their intended stay and a visa issued by a Chinese consulate. U.S citizens who arrive without a valid passport and the appropriate Chinese visa are not permitted to enter and will be subject to a fine and immediate deportation at the traveler’s expense. For more information, visit http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/.

Official Language: Chinese (Mandarin or Putonghua)

Key Industries: Software and IT systems; pharmaceuticals; food processing; and automotive, aircraft and furniture manufacturing

INFO TO GO

The Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport (CTU) is 10 miles from city center. The annual passenger flow of 16 million makes this China’s fifthlargest airport. New ramps to the third ring road have alleviated traffic jams on the Airport Expressway. Taxi fares into Chengdu are about $7. Once in Chengdu, metered taxi fares begin at under $1 and increase about 13 cents per mile, with no tipping necessary. The first line of the new subway system (running along Renmin Nan Lu to Tianfu Square) should open in late 2008.