"Welcome the Taoiseach of Ireland, Mr Bertie Ahern," said the giant electronic message board in the Shanghai stock exchange as Mr Ahern arrived yesterday morning on the third day of his visit to China. The 1,600 dealers on the floor hardly looked up at the VIP window from their computers in what must be the most orderly and sanitised stock exchange in the world - no frantic hand signals, no bells, no paper, even. In this vast eight-year-old high-tech trading house there is just the subdued tapping of computer keys. The Taoiseach was clearly impressed as he watched them silently trade shares in such companies as Wing Sung stationery makers and Changchun department store. He was even more taken with the information that some 20 million small investors play the Shanghai stock market, gambling like punters in dealing offices like bookies shops.
"They are the best ones to have because they just keep trading," a stock exchange official explained.
The Taoiseach also visited the Pudong area of Shanghai with its gleaming office towers, which has become China's financial centre and from a distance looks like Manhattan.
In the afternoon he toured the waterfront with his partner, Ms Celia Larkin, and several officials and journalists on a Chinese government launch, which has carried in its day such powerful figures as Deng Xiao Ping and the Chinese President, Mr Jiang Zemin.
From the boat they had a wonderful view of the famous Shanghai Bund, where the old European banking and merchant buildings made from imported granite, and some of the best postwar art deco structures in the world, continue to make China's second city unique in the Orient, despite the glitzy skyscrapers all around.
Last night, the Taoiseach and the large trade delegation travelling with him flew to Hong Kong, where today he will meet the former British colony's chief executive, Mr Tung Chee-hwa, before returning to Ireland.