A meeting on boosting Zhongshan's human resources was held on Oct 17. Photos Provided to China Daily

Celebrating the opening of a doctoral research program at Mingyang Electric, one of Zhongshan's leading enterprises.

The Pearl River Delta city of Zhongshan, in China's Guangdong province, came up with a mid-to-long-term human resources planning outline last week as part of its effort to preserve human resources in the region.

The plan, which is the first of its kind in the city, calls for the pooling of human resources and sets a target for developing an industrial base that attracts well-educated, well-trained people, in five to 10 years.

The people most in demand are holders of a bachelor's degree or higher, middle-ranking professionals or higher, as well as veteran workers with special skills.

The city is looking for at least 10 nationally or globally ranked academics or technology leaders, 100 people with technological knowledge that is in great need for the city's strategic growth, and another 100 outstanding provincial experts.

It will also look for at least 300 top professionals from abroad.

The plan calls for special supports from the city for 100 scientific and research teams with new technologies, innovative abilities, and competitiveness, 10, of whom, will make the provincial list of innovative scientific research teams.

Additional moves

The city will continue holding human resource fairs of different types both at home and abroad and will have rewards for those who make a major contribution to local scientific and technological development.

It will also set up three key national labs or engineering technological research centers, 10 workstations for academicians, and 20 post-doctoral research workstations and innovation bases in five to 10 years.

Other moves outlined in the plan include training programs for personnel in: electronics and information technology, new energy sources, bio-medicine, equipment manufacturing, finance, the exhibition business, modern logistics, information services, scientific and technological services, culture, and innovation,

About 1,000 people will be needed for senior management, who are acquainted with modern management techniques, market rules, and international practices.

"We absolutely need to improve human resources to give the economic transformation a boost," said Xue Xiaofeng, the Party secretary of Zhongshan.

"The city wants 680,000 well-educated, well-trained people in about a decade, with senior professional title holders accounting for 12 percent of that and veteran workers with special skills, for 31 percent of all the city's total," Xue explained.

He has asked officials to give priority to human resource development in the budget.

Governments at both the municipal and township levels are being told to set aside a special fund for that purpose, of no less than 3 percent of the fiscal revenues annully.

"The capital input for human resource development will increase 4 percentage points by 2020 from the current figure and evaluations of official performance will be based more on how well that sector is developed."

Xue said that the pool of human resources will be enlarged through an industrial transformation, developed urban areas and the development of high-end projects .

Lei Biao, head of the group working on human resources development, had this to add, "As Zhongshan increases its economic transformation and builds a modern industrial system, demand for high-caliber professionals intensifies."

The human resources plan signifies a new start for the city's human resources strategy and will provide support for future development, Lei said.

How well Zhongshan does in its industrial transformation will directly affect the degree to which it appeals to top-notch professionals, provincial human resources experts remarked.

They said that key projects to be funded by large State-owned enterprises and the top 500 private-sector companies will provide a high-level sector for senior professionals.

"Preferential policies and improved services will also make top professionals more interested in settling there," they said.

The city has a plan to upgrade 100 local enterprises further, and help 100 other Chinese enterprises get bigger and become more competitive, while securing 100 high-quality enterprises or projects around the globe.

Zhongshan has been accelerating the pace of work on its "one platform, two bases", which refers to an industrial transformation center, which uses its Cuiheng New District, an emerging area of the city; and bases for wind power equipment manufacturing and new energy, and the automotive industry.

And it has seen rapid development in new energy, equipment manufacturing, electronics, information technology, healthcare products, and medicines.

Some of its major projects, funded by the China National Offshore Oil Corp and China State Shipbuilding Corp, have either moved to Zhongshan or increased spending in the area.

The city came up with policies in 2010 to push this along, many of them are more innovative than the policies of other cities in Guangdong province.

They come under a strategy for training existing personnel, awarding not only employers but also individuals who contribute a great deal, and more generous subsidies for those personnel.

The city already gave some fairly substantial rewards last week to several dozen individuals, teams and enterprises for their contributions to scientific and technological advances.

Three awards went to individuals and groups in the first "Zhongshan Outstanding Contribution Awards for Innovative Science and Technology" category, where the highest award amounted to 5 million yuan.

Three enterprises received 500,000 yuan as an award for their excellence in human resources development; two R&D teams received subsidies worth up to 8 million yuan for their innovation; and 35 individuals were selected as the city's outstanding experts and top-notch professionals.

(China Daily 10/28/2011 page10)