But one need only take a short ride through town and see the great number of construction projects and cell phone users to get the idea that the city known as the "Venice of the East" is modernizing at a rapid pace. Much of the infrastructural change is driven by new government programs, says Cheung, who spoke with PCI in November at ChinaCoat '99 in Shanghai. He says the urban populations along China's East Coast in cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou and Tianjin are more receptive to foreign products, processes, and ideas, and to the pace of modernization, than their counterparts in West China. This, he says, largely reflects the influence of the high number of private entrepreneurial enterprises in and near these cities.
"China is a very distinctive market in terms of business culture. Doing business in the South is quite different than [doing so] in the Shanghai area, which is different than in the North region." Foreign paintmakers looking to expand here, he says, need to understand the differences.