'Business is good in Dubai,' says Fei Zhen Xu, in the back of her Porsche Cayenne, as it roars through the streets of the emirate, weaving around the bases of skyscrapers. The vehicle, driven by an Indian chauffeur, is heading to Fei's place of work, DragonMart, a market three times the size of London's Wembley Stadium and in which she has a shoe store, a handbag shop and a restaurant in one of the venue's busiest corridors.
DragonMart, whose silhouette resembles that of a reptile when seen from above, is the first and biggest wholesale bazaar of its kind in the world, housing 4,000 Chinese-owned businesses that sell Made in China products to the region and beyond. From textiles, jade figurines and synthetic grass, to reproductions of the Koran, furniture and household appliances, all the products on sale here come directly from mainland factories. At the entrance stands a keen-looking dragon embracing a golden Earth. Adjoining the premises, China's Cosco, the world's second-largest shipping company, has 40,000 square metres of space in which to organise its logistics operations.
'Dubai is a great place for business,' Fei says. 'It's easy to get a visa and you pay little tax.'
The trader, whose husband remains in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, supervising the family's factories, has lived on her own in the Arab emirate since investing here in 2004.
'I arrive at work at 8am and I finish late at night. I don't have any days off. The reason? I find making money fascinating,' she says.
Thanks to businesses such as Fei's, Dubai has become, for traders across the Arab world and Africa, the new Yiwu, the established distribution hub in Zhejiang.
'Iranians, Africans, Iraqis, Arabs ... they all now buy their goods here instead of flying to [China]. It's more convenient in terms of logistics and language,' says Abdulla Lootah, the brains behind DragonMart.