2,068 letters of intent have been signed at the Conference on International Exchange of Professionals (CIEP) to provide foreign expertise to China.

Hailing foreign experts' invaluable contribution to China, these included 1,245 invitations to foreign economic and technical experts, and 207 invitations to foreign cultural and educational experts. The other 616 agreements were provided for Chinese nationals to go and train abroad.

The conference, which ended in Shenyang Thursday, was sponsored by Liaoning Province, the State Council's Office Revitalizing Northeast China and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA).

From the original introduction of 1,000 foreign experts and professionals annually in the early years of China's opening-up, China's foreign expert population has shot up to 340,000, according to SAFEA statistics.

Speaking at the conference, SAFEA spokesman Liu Yongzhi recognized the massive contribution to China's development.

The SAFEA has approved 370 foreign professional exchange businesses in China as well as 5183 domestic organizations that are entitled to introduce foreign experts.

This is the fifth CIEP conference and the first one to be held outside Nanjing. The CIEP already has 11,800 agreements to its name and has become a key channel for introducing foreign expertise to China.

As it grows in strength, the event is expected to play a role in revitalizing China's old north-eastern industrial base by attracting top-level foreign expertise and technologies.

About 700 foreign delegations from 30 countries - including Russia, the United States, Japan and France - attended the conference, exhibiting more than 2000 high-tech cooperation projects covering manufacturing, electronics, petroleum and chemical industries, metallurgy and mining, health, environmental protection, IT, agriculture and architecture.

In contrast to the previous four conferences, this year's CIEP has had a more international flavor, attracting a large number of delegations from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with about 350 participants and 2,000 high-tech projects.

(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn September 22, 2006)