Some 80 talented overseas Chinese visit the Zhangjiang High Tech Park, the first stop of their four-day tour of Pudong from Dec 26 to 29. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Pudong New Area of Shanghai played host to 80 talented overseas Chinese from Dec 26 to 29, who came learn about Pudong's business and entrepreneurship environment.

The participants, carefully selected from nearly 300 applicants, work in various fields including biomedicine, information technology, energy, environmental protection, finance and investment. Nearly 90 percent of them have doctorate degrees.

Moreover, about half of the visitors have worked as chairman, founder or CEO of an overseas company. Others included scholars of top-rated universities such as Cambridge, Harvard and Columbia; some were top managers and engineers at Google and IBM; and some were scientists from NASA in the US, Germany's Helmholtz Association of National Research Centers, and Singapore's National Cancer Center.

The first stop for the top minds was Zhangjiang High Tech Park, where the organizers introduced them to Pudong's latest talent policies and Zhangjiang's innovation and entrepreneurship environment. A matchmaking event between the talents and local institutions was also held, yielding several cooperation deals.

The four-day event forms part of Pudong's efforts to attract talented personnel from all over the world and serve Shanghai's goal of becoming an international scientific and technological innovation center. The event was jointly held by the Pudong Association of Returned Overseas Scholars, Pudong talent exchange center, Pudong International Talent City, and Pudong International Talent Development Center.