Gastone, or Gai Shitong in Chinese, is a member of the Belt and Road Initiative Entrepreneurial Center of Foreign Students in Hangzhou Cross-Border Trading Town, Zhejiang province. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

"If you want to start your business, just come to Hangzhou,"said Gastone, a foreign student from Zambia.

Gastone, or Gai Shitong in Chinese, came to Hangzhou six years ago to pursue undergraduate studies at Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. Majoring in marketing, the young man started his own business at an entrepreneurial center in the Cross-Border Trading Town in Hangzhou two years ago, focusing on retail, wholesale, imports and exports.

"It's not easy for expats to start businesses in China, especially when we are confronted with difficulties in local policies, capital funds and finding offices to rent at a reasonable price," Gastone explained, adding that Hangzhou is endowed with a sound environment conductive for innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as preferential talent policies.

As the son of a businessman, Gastone has always had a head for business. After finishing his sophomore year at the university, he started to pay multiple visits to trade fairs in Yiwu and Guangzhou, closing a few business deals in the years that followed.

At the end of 2017, Hangzhou rolled out a new wave of preferential exit-entry policies covering expats' visas, long-term stay and permanent residency in an effort to attract and retain high-caliber foreign professionals. Thanks to the new policies, Gastone is the first international student in Hangzhou who has received a two-to-five-year entrepreneurship residence permit.