Special Supplement: Dalian meeting an industry demand

Dalian, a port city in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, is pushing to provide enough professionals to meet the demands of its IT industry.

Twenty-two higher education colleges and institutes in Dalian have introduced majors related to IT and so far 40,000 students have graduated.

About 100 other IT training centers have been established with the cooperation of IBM and Microsoft.

The city has also adopted a series of preferential policies to attract new talents.

Each year, Dalian launches a campaign to encourage companies to undertake nationwide recruitment visits to the various universities and colleges.

It also offers incentives to companies to set up operations in the city. It the past two years, the city's IT companies have increased to more than 10,000.

This year, the city government set up a 10-million yuan ($1.3 million) special fund to attract new IT students.

Dalian is seeking to become the largest IT training center in the country.

By 2010, the city hopes to have about 10 institutes and more than 80,000 students.

(Shanghai Start 09/07/2007 page7)