Favored destination for those at home and abroad

Xiamen, a sub-provincial city in Fujian province that looks out to the Taiwan Straits, was recently voted one of China's cleanest cities and its second-most comfortable city to live in.

Xiamen and the surrounding countryside areas are famous as ancestral homes to overseas Chinese and one of China's earliest Special Economic Zones in the 1980s. It covers an area of more than 1,500 sq km with a local population of 5 million.

Xiamen boasts one of the most vibrant economies on the east coast of China. In 2007, its GDP amounted to 137.5 billion yuan, an increase of 16.1 percent over the previous year. Its per capita GDP was 56,595 yuan. By the year 2010, the GDP is expected to rise to $14,000 per head. Xiamen aims to establish itself as a thriving center for shipping, logistics, finance, commerce, tourism, convention, exhibition, culture and education on the east coast of China.