SHANGHAI IS CREATING new initiatives to open its doors wider to overseas professionals - all part of its ambitious strategy to become one of the world's leading economic centres.
The first phase of a local government project to attract 10,000 overseas Chinese professionals started in 2003 and successfully achieved its goal in two years.
Now the second round has hit the road. Joined by 27 enterprises and institutional delegations, the Shanghai municipal government held three job fairs - in San Francisco, New York and Toronto from September 9 to 17 - offering more than 4,000 vacancies.
The personnel bureau of the government also acted as the agent for 136 other enterprises, mostly from finance, logistics, manufacturing, health and IT industries, to recruit professionals in the job fairs.
Huang Weimao, director of the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Personnel, said: 'To meet the demands of Shanghai's fast development and adaptation to economic globalisation, the second-round project will be aimed at high-level Chinese professionals from overseas [including] Hong Kong and Macau.'
The job fairs attracted more than 1,500 applicants, 80 per cent of whom held a master's or doctorate degree and were aged below 40.