Opportunities thrive at Fujian's Taiwan Town

Cluster of merchants

Yang Zongxian has been in Pingtan for about 15 years, long enough to have experienced the quieter years of Taiwan Town as well as its latest transformation.

He leased about 7,000 square meters of commercial space soon after the renovation plan kicked off last year, and filled it with food, tea and specialty products from Taiwan. He also opened a restaurant featuring Taiwan-style food and invited other businesspeople from the island to join him at the complex.

Among them was a young entrepreneur who opened a dessert shop and developed products inspired by Pingtan's famous blue tears, the blue-green glow created by bioluminescent plankton along the island's coast.

Yang sees bringing merchants together as a way of building a market that can sustain itself. "Only by forming a cluster can we really strengthen the market," he said.

During the May Day holiday, Yang's beef noodle restaurant sold up to 1,000 bowls a day, with daily takings exceeding 30,000 yuan ($4,490).

About 558,000 visits to Taiwan Town were recorded from Feb 10 to Aug 18, up 191 percent year-on-year, while sales reached 59.33 million yuan, up 60 percent, according to Lin. The number of Taiwan-invested businesses rose from 26 before the transformation to 78.

Before the makeover, visitors typically spent less than an hour in Taiwan Town. That has now stretched to about three hours, Lin said. The complex's operator is aiming to keep visitors there for five or six hours, or even overnight.