Audience watch a Sichuan Opera actor performs the stunt of spitting fire in Chengdu. [China Daily]

Together with Mount Qingcheng, the project was listed as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 2000 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Mount Qingcheng, 16 km from Dujiangyan, which is known as 'the most tranquil place under heaven,' is the birthplace of Taoism, China's only indigenous religion.

Chengdu has been a land of abundance throughout history because of its developed agriculture and lack of conflict. Located in the Sichuan Basin and surrounded by rolling mountains, invading troops found Sichuan inaccessible in ancient times.

The city is famous for pandas, romantic poets, spicy hotpot and, more recently, bars and a relaxed atmosphere.

'It is a mix of Frankfurt, Paris and Chicago,' Mayor Ge said.

Ge, a former vice-president of Shanghai-based Baosteel Group, one of China's largest State-owned enterprises, says his last job trained him to think like an entrepreneur. In fact, the Shanghai native has on many occasions acted as Chengdu's main PR man.

He has jumped on opportunities to promote the city to foreign investors, attending the American Chamber of Commerce in China's annual dinner last year, the only mayor to be present. At the 30th Anniversary of the Canada-China Business Council, he gave a lecture and held several meetings with Canadian businesspeople.

Ready for change

Ge is confident that as the world gets increasingly flat, economically speaking, inland Chinese cities such as Chengdu will play an increasingly important role in China's economic development. For the past several decades, coastal cities have flourished thanks to convenient transportation. Now, as modern technology and industry play a more important role, inland cities are in a good position to develop.