No major official celebrations were held to mark the 11th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's death yesterday but reminders of the late paramount leader's legacy seem to be everywhere in China as the country welcomes the 30th year of its economic reforms.

Nearly 13,000 tourists visited Deng's commemorative site in Guang'an City in the southwestern Sichuan Province on the anniversary, said Ma Fu, head of the management bureau in charge of the site.

He Yan, a villager from Xiexing Town in Guang'an, led her children in dedicating a flower basket to thank the man for her happy life.

She runs a restaurant serving local cuisine to tourists and earns more than 100,000 yuan (US$14,000) annually. While her parents were proud of owning watches and televisions, her family now surf the Internet in their two-story home.

"It's due to Deng Xiaoping. If he had not decided to initiate reform, I would not have enjoyed this prosperity today," she said. "Deng changed the fate of so many people."

Deng died of Parkinson's disease and a lung infection at 92 in 1997. His impact on the country has grown with time.

Thirty years ago, Deng and other senior leaders gathered for the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The meeting marked the beginning of China's reform and opening-up drive.

The plenum introduced a series of important decisions about reform which represented a turning point in the history of the Party and New China after its founding in 1949.

The reform and opening-up policies since then have boosted China's economy and lifted the country from poverty and backwardness to the world's fourth largest economy. Deng has been called the chief architect of China's reform and opening up.

In the southern city of Shenzhen, one of the country's first Special Economic Zones that lured foreign investment into the industrial sector, the local daily newspaper carried a long article praising Deng's legacy, particularly the speech he delivered during a tour of southern China in 1992, calling for bolder economic reform measures.

Editor: Yan