State Councilor Wang Zhongyu said in his written message to the national meeting of SBFEA staff in Beijing Tuesday, inviting overseas experts was a prime factor in "strengthening China with high-quality personnel," and also vital to its opening-up drive. 　　

In recent years, China has seen greater efforts and wider cooperation in the sphere of visits by overseas intellectuals which brought fruitful results in various trades and fields.

SBFEA director Wan Xueyuan said in his report that in the past two years, an increasing number of overseas high-level experts came to work in China's interior areas, as a result of its national strategy of inviting overseas personnel.

In agriculture, the country has so far established 77 national demonstration bases and 163 provincial bases in 25 provinces and regions to show the joint work by overseas experts and local farmers. A nationwide coordination network has taken shape, which facilitate speeding up agricultural restructuring.

Wan said, China had also increased input and support in the hi-tech industry, especially the software and integrated circuit fields. Inviting highly-competent experts had also boosted the publishing industry, foreign-oriented publicity, and the culture and education sectors among others.

Meanwhile, China carried out a series of projects on training county and town-level government administration staff, to boost sustainable development in the western part of the country.

The SBFEA, pinpointing new circumstances in China since its World Trade Organization (WTO) entry, urged the relevant administrations and local regions to learn from other WTO members and solve issues like technology trade barriers, dumping and anti-dumping, Wan said.

According to Wan, China has set up an international personnel market focusing on the Zhongguancun hi-tech zone in Beijing, which, in connection with the big cities of Shanghai and Guangzhou, had forged a comprehensive network for international personnel exchanges. The country also examined the operating licenses of 294overseas organizations and training institutions, 73 local intermediary agencies, and 2,829 local enterprises inviting overseas culture and education experts.

Taking the advantage of the opportunity of hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, China is actively exploring new ways of inviting intellectuals from overseas, Wan said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 9, 2002)