MADRID (DPA) — Practically every neighborhood in the Spanish capital Madrid has at least one shop like Ana’s.

Ana is not her real name, but like many Chinese entrepreneurs in Spain, she uses a Spanish first name, which is easier for her clients to remember. Ana’s shop on Colombia Street in north Madrid displays a sign that says “foodstuffs,’’ but it is more like a mini-supermarket, offering products ranging from cleaning supplies to toiletries at rock-bottom prices.

The shop is nearly always open. Despite her long working hours, Ana, who is in her early 40s, is always friendly and quick to smile. She speaks just enough Spanish to quote prices, help clients find products, and hold simple conversations.

Ana and her husband came to Spain two years ago, leaving their 10-year-old son with his grandmother in Beijing, she explains in broken Spanish, as Chinese blares from a television set in the background.

Shops like Ana’s have become ubiquitous in many cities in Spain, where the number of Chinese immigrants has risen to about 154,000, up from 124,000 in 2007, according to the Labour and Immigration Ministry.

Most of the new arrivals come from the southeastern Chinese region of Qingtian and live in Madrid or Barcelona, according to Spanish media reports.

There are large numbers of Chinese businesses in some neighborhoods, such as Madrid’s multicultural Lavapies, which has hundreds of Chinese shops and restaurants. But the capital does not have a real Chinatown, because Chinese establishments are scattered all over the city.

While Spain’s economic crisis is driving other immigrants back home, the Chinese presence is only becoming more visible. They now run more than 20,000 businesses in Spain, the daily El Mundo reported.

The immigrants first became known as owners of Chinese restaurants – which number more than 2,000 in Spain – and of “all-for-1-euro’’ shops selling all kinds of cheap, China-made products. Now, however, they run a large variety of businesses, ranging from typical Spanish bars and hairdressing salons to travel agencies and insurance companies.

The Chinese no longer employ just other Chinese but Spaniards, too, in a country with a 20-percent unemployment rate. “I would be out of work if I had not decided to work for them,’’ said Juan Perez, an instructor at the Woo Fu driving school in the eastern city of Valencia.

A few years ago, Chinese immigrants made headlines mainly for running clandestine textile factories employing other Chinese – often illegal immigrants – in slave-like conditions, or for selling pirated CDs and DVDs. Today, such news has partly been replaced with Chinese rags-to-riches stories, such as that of industrialists Li Tie, 33, and Yong Ping, 43.

Li Tie started two decades ago on Madrid street corners selling bags. Now he and Yong Ping have opened a 40,000-square-meter commercial and industrial center – one of the largest such projects ever undertaken by foreigners in Spain – with plans to add a four-star hotel. “The banks give us (Chinese) loans easily, because we are good at paying them back,’’ Yong Ping told El Mundo.

Despite many Spaniards being acquainted with shopkeepers like Ana, few of them have made close friends with Chinese immigrants, who have the reputation of forming a rather closed community. A key aspect of their commercial success is that members of the same family-run-related businesses and give interest-free loans to each other, social anthropologist Joaquin Beltran explained. “Business logic goes together with family honor,’’ he said.