Xiamen is located in the southern part of Fujian Province on the southeast coast of China and west coast of the Taiwan Straits, separated from Quemoy Island by only a narrow strip of water, It is a famous home to overseas Chinese and Taiwan Compatriots as well as one of the earliest special economic zones in China. It covers an area of 1,565 km2 with a permanent residential population of 2.01 million.

Xiamen enjoys a subtropical oceanic climate, mild and rainy, neither sweltering in summer nor freezing in winter with an annual average temperature of 21 centigrade, an average rainfall of 1,100 mm, and northeastern winds predominating. The average temperature during CIFIT is 26¡æ.

    Xiamen boasts sound infrastructure facilities with well-developed solid traffic network, advanced communication facilities, and sound financial service system. As one of the top ten ports in China, Xiamen has navigation routes to over 60 ports in more than 40 countries and regions. Xiamen is also a main air hub in east China with 76 international and domestic air routes to such places as Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Japan. Xiamen is also provided with various modern telecommunication services, which facilitate quick and convenient connections outside China. Long distance calls are available to 238 countries and regions in the world and over 1800 cities at home. Apart from the state-owned top four banks, seventeen other Sino-foreign joint venture and foreign-funded banks have established their head offices, branches or representative offices in Xiamen. Besides, there are numerous insurance, trust and investment agencies that provide various swift and convenient services.

    Xiamen is a well-known coastal tourist city and an international cruise port with beautiful landscape. It has been accredited successively as a National Sanitary City, National Model City for Environmental Protection, National Garden City, and National Excellent Tourist City, and is recognized as one of the most habitable cities in China.

    Since Xiamen Special Economic Zone was established, it has been adhering to the state's basic policy of reform and opening-up while giving full play to its regional advantages by introducing large amount of investment from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan as well as from foreign countries and overseas Chinese. Meanwhile, Xiamen also sets great store to developing horizontal economic alliance, bringing into being an export-oriented economic pattern with focus on industry, and coordinated development of first, second and tertiary industries-thus attributing to Xiamen's rapid economic development. In 1992, Xiamen was ranked among the top ten Chinese cities in terms of comprehensive strengths with its GDP increasing by an average of over 20% annually. In the year 2000, Xiamen's GDP amounted to 50.115 billion Yuan, an increase of 15.1% over the previous year, 1.1 percentage points over the expected increase target; and the per-capita GDP was about 4,650 US dollars. The opening-up policy was further carried out. The total volume of imports and exports in 2000 reached USD10.049 billion, while that of exports amounted to USD5.880 billion. The quality and efficiency of economic operation in Xiamen were further improved.

    Xiamen is a hot destination for foreign investors. By the end of 2000, a total of 4,991 projects with foreign direct investment were approved in the city, with a contractual foreign investment amount of USD17.527 billion and an actual foreign investment amount of USD11.452 billion.

    Xiamen Port falls into the first category of the nation's ports and is one of the top ten in China. It is a vast, deepwater, tranquil, ice-free port that never silts up. The natural coastline in the port area is 64.5km while the water is over 12m in depth. There are 81 berths of big, medium or small tonnage, including 16 deep-water berths, of which 6 accommodates containers of over 10,000 tonnages. 100,000t ships can berth directly at the inner port, while 50,000t ships can pull in for loading and unloading. At present, apart from the navigation routes opened to Hongkong, Japan, Korea, Kaohsiung and Singapore, Xiamen has newly opened ocean routes to the Mediterranean Sea, Europe and America. In 2000, the cargo throughput at the port was 19.65 million tons, an increase of 10.82% over the previous year; the container throughput reached 108.46 million TEUs, up by 27.83% from the previous year.

    At present, Xiamen's telecommunication industry is developing rapidly. The satellite earth station has been put into operation; long-distance calls can be made directly to 238 countries and regions in the world and over 1800 cities at home. Over 20 kinds of post and telecommunication services such as Digital Data Network (DDN), Private Branch (Telephone) Exchange (PBX), Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Express Mail Service (EMS), telephone message, facsimile and domestic intelligent network collect call "800"services, etc. have been in operation, providing quick and convenient connections worldwide.

    Xiamen boasts well-developed banking services. Apart from the state-owned commercial bank, Sino-foreign joint venture "Xiamen International Bank", and solely foreign-funded "Xiamen City Commercial Bank", overseas banks such as Hongkong's Jiyou Bank, East Asia Bank, Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd., Singapore's United Overseas Bank, Overseas Chinese Bank, America's Bank of Orient, Standard Chartered Bank, France's Credit Lyonnais Bank, Holland's ING Bank, the Philippines' Commercial Bank, and Thailand's Bangkok Bank, etc. have all established branches in Xiamen Hongkong's Hang Seng Bank, America's Citibank, Japan's Daiichi Kangyo Bank Ltd., the Philippines'Allied Bank, foreign-invested insurance company the Hartford Financial Services Group Xiamen Representative Office, etc. have set up their representative offices in Xiamen. There are more than 600 financial institutions in operation in Xiamen. Foreign-invested enterprises in Xiamen can enjoy various financial services from them.

  At present, there are seven foreign cities that have direct flights to Xiamen. They are Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta, Osaka, Nagoya, and Bangkok. Cities outside China's mainland that have direct flights to Xiamen are Hongkong and Macao.