Contest projects to boost China's IT, manufacturing and biomedicine

China is seeking innovation and entrepreneurial talent in Europe to help take its economy to a new level.

The European division of China Innovative and Entrepreneurship Competition for Overseas Talent has invited scientific and technological organizations and experts to recommend projects in the three fields of information and technology, high-end manufacturing and biomedicine.

Thirty three of a total of 112 projects submitted by 20 countries were selected to participate in a preliminary competition in Brussels, Belgium, on Saturday.

The competition was designed to attract original, innovative and leading projects which can be implemented in different regions of China in the future. Previously, projects have targeted cities such as Jinan in Shandong province, Changchun in Jilin province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang province.

Harbin, capital city of Heilongjiang province and an old major industrial hub in China, has become this year's regional base-camp.

"The fostering of new growth engines should be the priority in terms of revitalization of Northeast China", Zhang Chi, charge d'affaires of the China embassy in Belgium, said at the opening ceremony of the competition.

"Developing economy through innovation cannot be fulfilled without high-end talents and innovative projects", Zhang said. He described the competition, jointly sponsored by China Association for Science and Technology and the Heilongjiang provincial government, as a "good attempt with benefits".

Gong Hai, a contestant, is a doctoral student at the Technische Universiteit Delft (known as TUD) in the Netherlands who received his bachelor degree in Harbin Institute of Technology (known as HIT). He participated in the contest in a hope of turning what he had learned into real products that could contribute to China's technological progress.

"I am pretty familiar with HIT. It owns plentiful talent reserve in high-end manufacturing," Gong said.

He said that if his idea were adopted, it wouldbe conceivable to form a local professional team in Harbin for the project.

Besides the Chinese projects, other international teams have made their presence known in the competition. Among 112 projects in the European division, 12 are foreign contestants while more than 40 projects have one or more patents, according to Song Zhiwei, the president of Association of Chinese-European Innovation and Entrepreneurship.