This is the 10th of a series of reports on expats sharing their stories with the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

Chen Xiaochun

654789759@qq.com

FOURTEEN years ago when she was offered a chance to move to another city after spending two years in Nanjing, capital of East China’s Jiangsu Province, Francine Hadjisotiriou, currently general manager of the European Chamber South China Chapter, selected Shenzhen after some online searching regarding education for her two children.

“After checking out websites of international schools, we saw a modern city with palm trees and swimming pools and we immediately said ‘yes,’” recalled the Frenchwoman, who has lived in Shenzhen ever since.

In 2006, the European Chamber South China Chapter only had one office in Guangzhou, and Hadjisotiriou had to commute between Guangzhou and Shenzhen frequently. A year later, she decided to establish the Shenzhen office after seeing the potential growth of foreign investors and enterprises in the city, and she was right.

“When I first arrived here, there were very few business organizations that had a Shenzhen office,” she said.  (Continued on P3)