In addition to incentives, Zhongshan offers a good living environment to high-caliber professionals. Provided to China Daily

Zhongshan, a city in the prosperous Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong province, is attracting talented professionals from home and abroad through its favorable policies and incentives.

Among the newcomers are four medicine R&D veterans who long held senior positions at globally renowned medical companies including Pfizer Corp, Abbott Laboratories and Ardea Biosciences Inc in the United States before returning to start their own businesses in the city.

All with PhD degrees from internationally renowned US universities, the four experts jointly run medicine company Akeso Biopharma Inc in Zhongshan, which started earlier this year specializing in the R&D and production of new medicines for tumors, immune disorders and infectious diseases.

"The government of Zhongshan has attached very great importance to the development of biopharmaceutical industry - its preferential policies for securing high-caliber professionals are really appealing," said Wang Zhongmin, vice-president and chief business officer of Akeso. "So we 'ventured' to run a business here."

The company has indeed gained favor with local venture capital firms, raising an initial 90 million yuan for operations.

Wang said that his company is confident it has the right biopharmaceutical professionals, basing his upbeat viewpoint on the city's generous policies for pooling human resources.

Zhongshan moved into a higher gear to attract talented professionals in 2011 by announcing a human resources development plan to help the city's economic transformation and upgrade.

According to the plan, the city is expected to have at least 10 nationally or even globally renowned academic or technical leaders by 2020, 100 people with core technologies and in great need for the city's strategic growth industry, and another 100 eminent experts of the province. High-caliber professionals from abroad are also part of the plan.

Special fund

Governments at both city and township levels are now required to set up a special fund for human resource development with at least 3 percent of their total tax and other revenues.

The ratio is set to rise four percentage points by 2020 from the figure in 2011.

The city hammered out even more policies a couple of months ago in an attempt to secure top-notch professionals.

Included in the new policies are the subsidies of 1 million yuan for each new city-level workstation for academics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering and 800,000 yuan for each new workstation for post-doctoral research.

The original budgets were 300,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan respectively in 2011.

The subsidies will go to related institutions within two years instead of three years stipulated last year.

Each post-doctoral researcher is to be endowed with 50,000 yuan for R&D and a 12,000 yuan annual living subsidy.

And Zhongshan will set up a club for upper-level professionals so that they will have better opportunities in making friends and exchanging ideas while setting up a human resources database.

Christian A. Sandoval, chief operating officer of Enantiotech Corp Ltd - a manufacturer of chiral technology used to produce pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals - also spoke highly of the city's unprecedented efforts to attract talent.

"Zhongshan has many policies for taking good care of foreign experts. I enjoy my life and work here - and I'm looking forward to a promising future," he said.

zhanlisheng@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 11/08/2012 page4)