The last, Shenzhou 4, touched-down in Inner Mongolia on 5 January after a 162-hour mission.

BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | China manned space mission nears

Chen Ningning built an early fortune in the steel business but now most of her fortune lies in publicly traded Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Group, where she is an investor (not an executive).

FORBES: How China's Self-Made Women Billionaires Earned Their Fortunes

In 2006-09 the region's GDP (excluding Inner Mongolia, which extends into the north-east, but is not part of its industrial heartland) grew faster than that of the country's other three main economic regions, in the east, centre and west.

ECONOMIST: Reforming the north-east

Across the border in China's province of Inner Mongolia, a great amount of state-owned cashmere-processing capacity stands empty.

ECONOMIST: But promise to be very different this time

The deal with Zhenfa will give First Solar a landing opportunity in China, which the company tried to tackle when it signed agreements in 2009 for a 2-gigawtt plan in Inner Mongolia.

FORBES: First Solar, SunPower Ink Major Deals In China

Oh, what pleasure to plug in my three-pin British plug the other evening in Inner Mongolia, so very far from home.

BBC: A universal plug socket... at last?

For the geographically-challenged, Erdos sits in the southwestern part of Inner Mongolia near where Shaanxi province meets the autonomous region known as Ningxia.

FORBES: Erdos Per Capita GDP May Surpass Hong Kong's in 3 years