Firm helps Sierra Leone's recovery

Wang Guoxin is something of a trailblazer. Despite the risk of rebel gunfire, the senior engineer with the Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG) went to Sierra Leone in 2000 to work on a construction project.

Wang, and hundreds of Chinese construction workers, was involved in the restoration of a hotel on the outskirts of Freetown, ruined in the West African country's 10-year civil war.

"The only ones who are coming (to Sierra Leone) and investing at this stage are the Chinese," an unnamed United Nations official in Freetown at that time was quoted by local media as saying. "Everybody else is staying away."