Rodolphe Dubois, a 50-year-old French engineer, found new challenges when he started work at Nanjing Jiangbei New Area, one of the 19 national-level new areas in China.

He is now a senior researcher at Nanjing-based Sumec Group. Before coming to Nanjing, he had been working as an engineer in the United States for 16 years.

Last year, the general manager recruited Dubois to work as an agricultural machinery researcher because of his rich experience.

"When they gave me the offer, I thought it was a real challenge. But life needs challenges, so I decided to accept it," he said.

He has been working in the area for seven months and found Nanjing Jiangbei New Area is convenient and resourceful.

"When I arrived here, the stereotype about this place in my mind has been totally changed," Dubois said. "This place is so well-organized. One of the examples is that the high-speed railway is never late, which is quite different from that in France."

Dubois is one of the high-level professionals introduced to the area last year, to work with the area's new development plan of semiconductor, healthcare and financial industries.

Wang Yang, an office director at Sumec Group, said that to date, a total of 52 foreign experts have signed contracts with the company.

Thanks to the streamlined procedures to introduce foreign employees and supporting facilities such as apartments, it has become easier for the company to hire experts and specialists from abroad, Wang said.

In recent years, the human resources office has taken the initiative to go abroad and drum up interest, said Zhu Xiaoxue, director of the office. The local administrative committee has held promotion conferences in countries including Finland and the United Kingdom.

In 2019, the area is making efforts to gather and cultivate research teams led by top experts from China and abroad, introduce 350 high-level entrepreneurs and attract 2,950 returnees.