Overseas Talent Urged to Help Homeland GrowThe government is drafting new policies in a bid to encourage skilled overseas Chinese people to make more contributions to the motherland, according to Yuan Wencheng from the Ministry of Personnel.In August, the State Council issued new rules which outlined preferential treatment for overseas Chinese experts who have returned to China. The impending regulations are designed for overseas people who intend to make contributions without coming back to live in China, Yuan said Wednesday. He declined to give exact details about how this would be achieved, according to chinadaily.com.cn. Since 1978, the country has sent a total of 340,000 students to study in more than 100 countries and regions, 140,000 of whom have come back. In recent years, China, whose booming economy requires large numbers of skilled people, has made every effort to mine its huge pool of overseas talent. Next month, the ministries of personnel, education and science and technology, as well as Guangzhou municipal government, will jointly host the third Convention of Overseas Chinese Scholars in Science and Technology. According to Lin Yuanhe, vice-mayor of Guangzhou, the three-day convention is aimed at providing a platform for exchanges between skilled overseas Chinese people and domestic enterprises which are desperate for experts. The conference is open to all high-tech enterprises, high-technology industry zones, job markets and venture capital institutions, said Lin. Both of the previous two conventions, held in Guangzhou in 1998 and 1999, were successful and attracted large numbers of overseas experts to invest in China. Shanghai and Liaoning Province's Dalian have hosted similar conventions this year. This shows there is competition to attract overseas experts among different regions, especially in the comparatively better-off eastern areas. The local governments of Beijing and Shenzhen have both issued their own policies to attract skilled overseas workers. Some policies offered by the two are better than those offered nationally. More Talents ReturnedLatest data shows that China had seen 320,000 people go abroad for further study from 1978 to 1999, but one third of them have now returned home for career.Along with the globalization of the economic development, all countries in the world, especially among the developed countries have waged a fierce battle in soliciting for talents. The headhunting companies in American and European countries have taken China, India, Mexico and Brazil and some other developing countries as their main goals. Talents of info-tech and biotech have become the main targets with the main battlefield focused in China and India. It is said that in the Silicon Valley of America, parts of the info-industry have been addressed as Chinese or Indian industry. This year, Japan started to set its foot onto the battlefield too. Japanese Foreign Ministry has worked out a plan as from next year onwards to subsidize one billion yen of scholarship for increasing students from overseas to 10, 000 in five years' time so as to strengthen its influence in Asia. When Japanese Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro visited India last August, his first leg was not first landed on the capital of New Delhi, but instead the famous silicon valley city Bangalore. |
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