Gordon Styles has a taste for adventure. In July 2005, just one month after his ambitious UK engineering business collapsed, he left for China to begin a new life and a new company.

The new shape of Chinese manufacturing

In the third episode of a three-part audio slideshow series, Peter Marsh speaks to a British entrepreneur who started in China with just £5,000 but is aiming to achieve an annual sales of £15m in five years

He has no regrets about his decision to move overseas and set up Star Prototypes, a manufacturing company that makes components for prototypes of products ranging from medical equipment to toys. “China is a fantastic place to start up a business,” says an animated Mr Styles, interviewed in his cramped plant, which is surrounded by mile after mile of industrial premises in Zhongshan, one of the world’s biggest concentrations of manufacturing. “A lot of people might not like living here [in the Pearl River Delta], but for me it was like coming home,” he says, alluding to the industrial nature of the area. Which is probably just as well as his rented appartment is only a 20 minute car ride away.