21st Century Business Herald: What are some of the difficulties you faced when preparing for such a big event like the G20 summit?

Zhang: We faced a lot of difficulties preparing for the summit, such as having little experience in holding international conferences. Improving the city’s urban environment was another difficulty. However, the biggest challenge was how to make full use of the summit to benefit the city and its citizens for the longest time possible. To ride the wave as it were, we planned to combine the summit preparation, city development and the improvement of people's livelihoods together. For example, the government completely renovated an old complex of buildings for the summit instead of building something from scratch, which laid a foundation for further developing the local economy and transforming the city into an international conference venue.

21st Century Business Herald: How did the Hangzhou government attract investment for the B20 and promote Hangzhou? Are there any specific policies?

Zhang: We hope the B20 summit can help Hangzhou improve its open economic development. Before the summit, we invited Top 500 enterprises and internationally leading industries to attend. During the event, a B20 summit business culture display will be held with the aim of attracting overseas-funded enterprises and the internationalization of private enterprises.

21st Century Business Herald: The G20 summit will significantly improve the GDP of Hangzhou, do you think that will last into the future?

Zhang: The positive influence of the summit has shown its early signs. The GDP of Hangzhou during the first half year of 2016 has increased 10.8 percent, ranking it at the top for cities of the same size in China.

However, there is still quite a lot of infrastructure construction needed after the summit, as Hangzhou prepares for the Asian Games in 2022.

The government will speed-up infrastructure construction in the city and accelerate the implementation of some important projects such as the draft plans for Hangzhou's train network and metro. In addition, the construction of an open platform of information networks and data will be hastened.

We will also focus more on the building of innovative infrastructures such as an Internet Plus entrepreneurship innovation center, a science and innovation corridor, and a financial zone along the Qiantang River.

Social infrastructure such as urban village renovation and the construction of sewage treatment facility will also be pushed forward.