You are a very beautiful country and a very talented people, the Chinese Vice-Premier, Li Lanqing, the fourth most powerful man in the People's Republic, announced at the dinner in his honour hosted by Tanaiste, Mary Harney in Iveagh House on Wednesday. Through an interpreter, he said he had read the works of George Bernard Shaw and James Joyce. Ulysses was considered the best stream of consciousness novel. He had been very surprised that Ireland, with such a small population, had four Nobel Prizes for literature. "This sets me thinking; how can Ireland become also the number one exporter of software in the world? Logic thinking is not enough; it also takes creative thinking. The intelligence of the Irish people is the combination of the two. I have very great admiration for that. We have also been very surprised by the speed with which the economy has developed into the fastest growing in the world."
As the guests, many of them in the business/software world, basked in this praise, Li went on to say that at Shannon, Ireland had developed the special development areas and in 1980 the then foreign investment minister, now President Jiang Zemin, visited Shannon and was so impressed that he built five special economic zones on his return to China. Li came in his own jumbo jet with a delegation of 70, a figure, the Tanaiste quipped, which would spell electoral death for any Irish politician who followed suit.