SHANGHAI: For 28-year-old Selvamaniam Kosala, working in
Shanghai is both a refreshing and rewarding experience.
The electronics engineer from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, moved to
the city in November 2005 with her husband, a product manager for
the Asia-Pacific region of Royal Philips Electronics.
Kosie, as she likes to be called, said that while she was quite
content with her life and work back home, the opportunities offered
in a rapidly developing China were just too good to resist.
"I think I made the right decision," Kosie said.
"The city provides great opportunities for foreigners like us
who want to start a career here."
Kosie works in the technical writing division at IBM in the
city's Pudong hi-tech zone.
"I have been even happier since my daughter was born 10 months
ago," she said.
"She seems to like the city as much as we do, and I hope that
growing up in a bilingual environment will benefit her in the
future."
In recent years, Shanghai has witnessed a huge rise in the
number of foreigners moving to the city to live.
According to the municipal labor and social security bureau, the
number of expatriate workers living in the city grew from 4,000 in
2000 to more than 60,000 at the end of last year.
Sun Hande, director of the bureau's labor and employment center
for foreigners, said: "This shows Shanghai is becoming more and
more foreigner-friendly and an increasingly popular choice among
expats as a place to start a new career."
The largest numbers of expats hail from Japan, the United States
and South Korea.
"Most of them have good academic qualifications, with 89 percent
holding bachelor's degrees or better," he said.
Most expats work for foreign firms in managerial and technical
positions in areas such as real estate, banking, insurance and
consultancy.
"My friends think Shanghai is heaven. This is partly because
foreigners are paid more than local people, but the cost of living
is low," Marie Sander, a young German woman working as an intern at
a Chinese consultancy firm in Shanghai, who plans to stay after
graduation in Germany, said.
Sun said foreigners looking to work in Shanghai can now apply
online for an official permit and the bureau will process their
applications within five days, faster than the national standard of
15 days.
Procedures at the entry-exit administration have also been
simplified to encourage the inflow of foreign professionals in
selected fields, Sun told China Daily.
(China Daily January 2, 2008)