Having set up the Shanghai Talent Market Beijing representative office in October last year, the city plans to set up another representative office in Xi'an, in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, also renowned for its centres of higher learning.

Following the warm response to a job fair organized by 12 local universities in Beijing last week, the city plans to hold more fairs to recruit talented people.

A question that naturally arises is why is Shanghai so keen to recruit people from outside its city limits, when for decades the city has been well known for its reluctance to welcome outsiders.

Huang Hanliang, director of the Personnel Department of Shanghai Education Commission, said local universities are facing the imminent retirement of 90 per cent of its faculty leaders from their posts.

Most universities are also starting to recoil from the "inbreeding" characteristic of the local academic scene, whereby most of their teachers are graduates of the university they now teach at.

"That's why we are keen to absorb new blood from outside," said Huang.

In a desperate search for fresh expertise, key local universities have put together attractive packages of benefits.

High salary

In addition to an annual salary over 100,000 yuan ($12,000), specially-appointed professors will get an annual subsidy of 100,000 yuan ($12,000) and special benefits to be enjoyed by all the teaching staff.

Spouses and children of top teachers will also be granted permanent residential rights and given jobs or sent to school.

Rigid controls previously imposed over the influx of people into the city have been updated. "Now the city controls the population numbers only, it gives the green light to all well-qualified candidates," Huang said.

All people under 35, with above a bachelor's degree, will be granted permanent residential rights as long as they are accepted by a company or university.

The city also lifted its decade-old restrictions on non-Shanghai college graduates in job hunting.

Chen Liangyu, executive vice-mayor of Shanghai, explained in a speech held in mid-1999 that high costs of labour, energy and transportation have become a heavy burden on local conventional industries, which have lost their advantages over their counterparts in the inland provinces, where the costs are much lower.

"So Shanghai must create a talent pool if it wants to have a sure footing in the 21st century," said Chen. "Only in this way can Shanghai make itself a base for high-tech research and development.

Facing challenge

"To face the challenges posed by the increase in competition, we must put skills first and create favourable policies to attract people to work here and settle here," said Chen.

Local leaders realize that compared with other cities like Shenzhen, Shanghai still lags behind in terms of recruitment feasibility and income distribution. On television, radio and in newspapers Shanghai Party Secretary Huang Ju and Shanghai Mayor Xu Kuangdi are constantly stating that the city's development needs the support of the rest of the country as well as skilled people from outside.

"We must break down all kinds of walls," they say, referring to prejudices against other regions, red-tape and overlapping recruitment procedures.

A job market once largely monopolized by local Shanghainese is now more and more characterized by meritocracy and competition on an equal footing.

Today a non-Shanghainese will not have a problem applying for a job if he speaks Putonghua or Mandarin but not the city's local dialect. Putonghua has become the language on university campuses, in new joint ventures and in high-tech companies that recruit most of Shanghai's qualified people from other parts of China.

The fact is that Shanghai has already broken down its decade-old walls and is now opening its arms to embrace talented people who wish to work here from all over the country.