KEY POINTS:
Back in the Chinese city of Shenzhen for the second time in just over a year, I'm once again stunned by its growth.
Deng Xiaoping's decision to create a special economic zone here, just a short trip from Hong Kong, pushed the population from about 10,000 in the
late seventies to over 10 million in little more than a generation. The sense of "progress" is palpably intense.
I'm in town as a guest of Sir Ron Brierley's Guinness Peat Group to take a look around the South China manufacturing facilities of Coats, the aged British garment and haberdashery giant which GPG took over several years ago and has been restructuring.
But Shenzhen's speciality is something a little more high-tech than that.
The city is home to or hosts a number of big electronics and computer manufacturers such as Lenovo, Huawei and Taiwanese company Foxconn. You might not be familiar with the name, but you are familiar with its work. It is the largest contract manufacturer of electronic goods in the world and makes most of Apple's iPods, iPhones and notebooks at its Shenzhen plant.
With a bit of time on my hands after checking into my hotel, I head into town, 25km away, to check out the CBD and Shun Hing Square, the ninth tallest building in the world.
As it goes, I only make it as far as the commercial and shopping district of Hua Qiang Bei where I find the SEG Plaza, which at a mere 365m, is only Shenzhen's second tallest building.
Hearing that this is where the locals go shopping, I take a look inside. If you're looking for electronic goods or anything to do with electronic goods, including all kinds of internal components, this is the place to come.
Starting off on the ground floor, you've got all your capacitor, resitor, diode and integrated-circuit needs covered, on the subsequent 10 floors of the market area you have all different kinds of computers, motherboards, memory, graphics cards and on and on. If you like Dick Smith this place is Valhalla.
The fascinating thing is that while it has a retail function, selling phones, laptops, MP3 players and other consumer items, it is also a trade and wholesale forum.
A couple of larger stalls selling nothing but spools of arcane electronic components have rows of women on phones taking orders. Business is brisk.
This place has a real market vibe, with about 40 or 50 stalls on each floor often staffed by mum, dad and the kids and with a noodle joint on every second floor or so.
Heading back to my hotel, which is in Nanshan, an area of the city currently undergoing redevelopment, I stop off to check out the new shopping centre nearby recommended by the hotel concierge.
Coastal City is very new, and largely deserted.
Given the way Shenzhen is growing, very soon they will be busier.
* Adam Bennett travelled to China as a guest of GPG.
