Perrin Beatty, President of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, is a regular guest at APEC meetings.
"It's fascinating to me. I first came to China at 1991 and I came to Beijing, and Beijing today is unrecognizable to me compared to what I saw previously. I think for anybody coming from North America, you are very much strike by the pace of development, by the interests people have in business and the opportunities that are there for both of us."
Back in 2001, China hosted its first APEC summit in Shanghai. That year, China joined the World Trade Organization and won the bid for the 2008 Olympics.
The country was just starting to integrate with international systems and ranked as the world's sixth-largest economy.
Wang Shutong, CEO of internet shopping operator DH Gate, has been attending APEC meetings since 2011.
Wang details the changes she has spotted in Chinese companies over the years.
"I think the deep impression is, in the past, I think Chinese entrepreneurs tend to be pretty passive, but right now I think we are more aggressive to share our proposal, our best practices. And I think especially in several areas like e-commerce, SMEs, financing, we are leading a lot of innovation. For example, this year we develop a cross border e-commerce capacity building program."
In 2002, China's direct overseas investment was 2.7 billion U.S. Dollars. By 2013 the figure jumped to 107 billion. Over 250,000 Chinese companies have operations overseas.
Earlier, during the APEC CEO summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China's investment abroad in the next 10 years is expected to reach 1.25 trillion US dollars.
Tani Hoyhta, a project manager from New Zealand-based PFOLSEN, says such development is impressive.
"The development of China has been extremely impressive and rapid during the last 20, 30 years. Every year we hear about the gross domestic produce goes up to about 8 percent, maybe currently slightly slow down. But the speed of economic growing during the past 20, 30 years, it has really been amazing."
Next year's APEC meetings will be held in the Philippines.
For CRI, I'm Chloe Lyme.
