A survey made public on Monday by Hong Kong Continuing Professional Development Alliance shows that more Hong Kong professionals are willing to seek opportunities in the mainland.

The alliance conducted a survey during April to May to study the trend and intention of Hong Kong professionals working in or moving into the Chinese mainland. More than 240 responses were received and most respondents mainly came from marketing, accounting and finance, human resource and property management.

The survey revealed that 83 percent of the respondents currently have duties or responsibilities related to business or operations in the mainland, which is 14 percent higher than last year's record.

Respondents who reported to have a higher proportion of business-related tasks in the mainland tend to be professionals of the arbitration, accounting and marketing fields, with more than 15 years of experience in their respective profession and at top managerial level.

About 73 percent of respondents told that they need to work in the mainland and most of them, about 77 percent, worked in the first tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai. The findings also show that more professionals have moved to work in the second and third tier cities.

For the coming two years, nearly 70 percent of the respondents expected that the proportion of their mainland business-related job contents will increase.

According to the chairperson of the alliance Virginia Choi, nearly half of the respondents said they are actively seeking opportunities to develop career in the mainland due to the more promising career prospect in the mainland, and that they want to acquire experience in the mainland culture and practices for career development.

(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2007)