For Sun Yunhua, the country roads of Yunnan not only take him home, but also reveal a thoroughfare toward prosperity.

After running a furniture business in Laos for many years, the Yunnan-born businessman has decided to enter the floral and tourism industries back in Yunnan, as he senses a business boom taking off in his home province in southwest China.

"China has launched a strategy to build Yunnan into a gateway for South and Southeast Asia, which will bring more favorable and open policies to the province," Sun says.

Sun's optimism is shared by 35,000 businesspeople from 31 Asian countries and regions attending the ongoing China Kunming Import & Export Fair (Kunming Fair), where they have clinched 179.1 billion U.S. dollars in contracts on investing in Yunnan's mining, energy, tourism and infrastructure sectors.

Despite the economic slowdown China is currently experiencing, Chinese and foreign entrepreneurs are eyeing new opportunities as the country has pledged to expand the opening-up of its southwestern border regions.

Although it is an area long marked by poverty, southwest China is nevertheless believed to have huge yet untapped potential. It is also geologically close to South Asia and Southeast Asia -- regions China is looking to boost trade with in order to buffer the effects of waning Western demand.

Massive infrastructure projects are currently in full swing to complete the transport and logistic networks in Yunnan, which positions itself as the "bridgehead" on the opening up of southwest China.

Construction has begun on 12 railroads connecting Yunnan with other parts of China as well as Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, and these projects are "making progress," said Li Jiming, vice head of the Commercial Department of Yunnan.

Yunnan is also building a financial center to facilitate trade between China and South and Southeast Asia. Last year, 85 percent of local companies in the import and export sector got approvals to settle their foreign trade using renminbi, or yuan, China's currency.

Favorable winds are also blowing throughout other southwestern provinces and autonomous regions, including Guangxi and Guizhou, where officials have promised favorable investment conditions.

"Guizhou has rolled out new measures on land supply, tax reduction and support services, which are all to better serve our investors," Meng Qiliang, vice governor of Guizhou, said at the fair.