Australia surfs China's wave

There's no shortage of Chinese stories in the Australian business press, particularly with the enormous resource and energy deals that have been forged between Australia and China.

But most of the attention on China focuses on the "big three" - Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong-Pearl River Delta (PRD) areas of coastal China. This is no surprise because these places are where all the economic growth and wealth have occurred. Much of this, of course, is by design. For example, Deng Xiaoping, the father of China's market reform, chose the sleepy fishing village of Shenzhen to be a "Special Economic Zone" in 1980. This enabled Shenzhen and the PRD region to be a test bed for Deng's market reforms.

However, during my recent visits to China, I have kept noticing something new happening. After watching the growth in wealth of the big three, western China is keen to get a slice of the action and Beijing is directing resources in their direction. Inland cities such as Chongqing, Wuhan, Changsha and Chengdu are now generating economic growth and attracting infrastructure investment in airports, freeways, factories, offices and apartments for their growing populations.