During his visit to Shenzhen, Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore's former UN ambassador and a seasoned observer of Asia's rise, stopped at locations like BYD, MixC World and the Raffles Tower.
At MixC World, for example, one of the city's bustling retail hubs in the city, he was told that this single complex had recorded annual sales of 6.9 billion RMB (roughly US$1 billion).
His response was immediate and genuine: "Wow. This is one billion US dollars." The exclamation escaped him not just once, but twice - a spontaneous reaction from a diplomat accustomed to global economic indicators.
For Mahbubani, who attended the very first APEC leaders' meeting in 1993, the figure was more than a number; it was a tangible sign of Shenzhen's transition from manufacturing powerhouse to a consumer epicenter.
Text: Guo Zedong
Reporter: Liu Xiaodi
Editor: Yuan Zixiang, James Campion, Shen He
