Jiangsu holds national lead in attracting foreign talents

2021-01-20 15:00:00

Nanjing and Suzhou were on a list of the 10 Chinese cities most attractive to foreigners in 2020, according to a survey released by the Foreign Talent Research Center, the Ministry of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

File photo of Suzhou Industrial Park / CFP

The national recognition also reflected Jiangsu’s progress in attracting talent from across the world as it moves toward a high-quality, innovation-driven development. Data of the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Science and Technology showed there are 23,963 foreigners with work permits in the province, accounting for about 10.7% of the country’s total.

In recent years, cities in Jiangsu have strengthened efforts to attract more global talent. The Nanjing Brain Bay International Talent Community was launched in Jianye District in last December and has offered a series of streamlined services for foreign professionals, such as via WeChat in Chinese or English, according to Li Hui, party chief of the district.

The number of people who have completed education abroad and then returned to engage in innovation and entrepreneurship reached 43,000 in Nanjing, which has over 20,000 resident foreigners who live for more than half a year.

At the beginning of 2019, Suzhou won the approval to handle the full process of granting work permits for foreigners. As part of the Jiangsu Pilot FTZ, Suzhou introduced five new measures to attract more foreign talent, such as reducing the processing time for foreigners' employment permits from 15 working days to 3 working days. Suzhou Industrial Park is home to 4,300 resident foreign talent, about one-sixth of the province's total.

Jiangsu also launched a website to provide online recruitment, talent search and hunting services for expats in December. The platform has job information for over 200 posts in the field of equipment manufacturing, biomedicine, electronic information and new materials, published by 70 employers in the province. The platform also enabled enterprises and institutions in the province to facilitate contact with 19 overseas professional organizations in many countries including France, Germany, and Israel.