Stepping off the boat, she was not initially blown away by what she found. "Desolate and windy" were the words she used to describe her first impressions of Pingtan.

However, Yang changed her opinion after visiting some of the new projects springing up around the city. Through communicating with other Taiwan businesspeople that had already made the move to Pingtan, she found out about some of the preferential policies rolled out by the local government to encourage Taiwan residents to work in Pingtan.

The city was the home of the only experimental zone on the Chinese mainland open to Taiwan, and the local government had launched a slew of special policies designed to attract investors and businesses from Taiwan to hop across the Strait to Pingtan.

A high-speed passenger ferry offers a shuttle service between Pingtan and Taiwan every day. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The sharp-sighted Taiwan entrepreneur saw the potential for Pingtan to become another instant Chinese megacity, similar to other products of China's economic reforms such as Shenzhen, which enjoyed spectacular success thanks to its proximity to Hong Kong.

"The mainland has seen rapid development since reform and opening-up began in the 1980s. It only took about 30 years for Shenzhen to transform from a small fishing village into today's modern metropolis. As the closest city on the mainland to Taiwan, Pingtan is similar to Shenzhen 30 years ago and has infinite development possibilities," said Yang.