Policies should be improved to attract foreign talent

China needs to learn from foreign countries to improve policies for foreign talent working in the country, experts said on Friday at symposium on foreign affairs.

"We’ve noticed the importance of bringing in more foreign talent, which has been lagging behind the rapid economic growth," said Liu Yanguo, deputy administrator of State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, the top task force on talent on Friday.

The symposium was held to collect suggestions from domestic experts in foreign affairs.

When meeting 50 foreign experts in Shanghai, President Xi Jinping urged government agencies to improve the system for attracting foreign experts by protecting their intellectual property rights, safeguarding their rights and awarding outstanding work.

Special laws protecting foreign experts working in China are urgently needed to assure that they’re comfortable and want to stay in the country, said Wu Jiang, former head of the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science.

Wu said that along with stronger laws for foreign experts, management of experts should be strengthened and SAFEA should shoulder more duties including supervision and policymaking.

Mo Yuchuan, a law professor at Renmin University of China, said the country does not have the outstanding advantage in attracting foreign experts partly because of the strict application process for permanent residency.

"The immigration in US every year is more than 800 times of that in our country, while the population of US is only one quarter of ours," he said.

He added that China should learn from the immigration laws of developed countries and make a "beneficial exploration" into the current skilled immigration system.

The US federal government has relaxed legislation on recruiting foreign talent in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which are short on domestic workers.

"We should make more encouraging policies to attract foreigners especially those who have skills needed in China," he said.