For China, brain drain key to brain gain
(expressindia.com)
Updated: 2005-12-08 15:08

Besides, Chinese universities are spending vast sums wooing academics with foreign PhDs. According to Professor Feng Lu of Beijing University’s prestigious China Centre for Economic Research (CCER), salaries for returnee economists range from $30,000-50,000 per annum, excluding housing and other perks. A foreign PHD is a minimum qualification for a job at CCER. Professor Lu says that despite this stringent requirement there are 10-15 applicants, on an average, for every opening.

Domestic firms and the scores of MNCs that have flooded the country are constantly on the lookout for Chinese executives with MBAs from the best business schools abroad.

According to Ana Westlake, a Beijing-based HR consultant, executives with foreign degrees and work experience can expect to be paid two to three times more than colleagues with a domestic education.

The policy of encouraging Chinese students to go abroad was instituted by Deng Xiaoping who believed that if even a small percentage returned, it would benefit the country.

However, in the 1980s, only a trickle of students returned. An embarrassed Ministry of Educating (MOE) then began to advocate a policy reversal till the then general secretary of the Party, Zhao Ziyang, stressed on continuing to ‘‘store brain power overseas’’. By the late 80s, Chinese cities began to compete with each other to recruit overseas-educated talent, offering tax incentives, preferential business loans, free office space, better housing and faster promotions. Currently, over 110 different kinds of special zones and industrial parks for such "returnees" have been established, according to the Chinese MOE website. Over 6,000 enterprises are located in these parks, employing more than 15,000 returnees.

Government policy aimed to attract back top-class scientists, economists and entrepreneurs, particularly those in hi-tech areas. According to Xinhua, all 23 national chief scientists in China are returnees.