It took Konstantinos Pouleros just six months to decide to move to the Beilun district of Ningbo city, Zhejiang province after his first visit. Now, his wife works as a kindergarten teacher, and his son studies at an international primary school and speaks Chinese more fluently than him.

Pouleros used to be a production manager for a Greek branch of Nexans, one of the world's top three companies in the cable industry, where he contributed to a dozen world-famous submarine cable projects.

In June 2019, Pouleros was invited to visit the Ningbo Orient Wires & Cables Co. Ltd.. Impressed by the company's sincerity and confident in its future, he agreed to take charge of its Ocean Innovation Center as a chief engineer, focusing on the management of critical production processes for ultra-high voltage submarine and land cables, as well as its core technology R&D. He also provided consultation to the company's submarine cable marketing department and helped boost productivity and expand its overseas market.

As a manufacturing hub and an open district with a strong economy in Zhejiang, Beilun is home to more than 80,000 private enterprises. The first national demonstration zone for introducing foreign talent, Beilun began bringing in foreign engineers in the 1980s to help enterprises solve technical problems. Since then, more and more foreign experts have been attracted to the region and significantly boosted the transformation and upgrades of its local industries.

In April 2020, the Ningbo High-end Equipment Overseas Engineers Collaborative Innovation Center, a pilot project for relevant industries in Zhejiang, was founded in Beilun. Upon learning of Pouleros' situation,the center helped him apply for a talent program, making sure such top foreign professional could fully enjoy Beilun's policy dividends.

Enterprises that successfully recruit foreign engineers are granted annual salary funding, said an official from the district's science and technology bureau. The district will match the funding provided by Ningbo municipality, and total funding from the two levels of administration could be as high as 40% of an engineer's annual salary.

What's more, if top foreign professionals who are introduced in a flexible way and overseas engineers who possess a doctorate degree work full time in the district, they could see subsidies of up to 1 million yuan ($156,939) per year. The district will also allocate a maximum of 1 million yuan to support the programs geared towards technological breakthroughs or the commercialization of technological achievements. Those engineers whose children study at Beilun's international schools could get an additional 50,000 yuan tuition fee subsidy.

To further improve the efficiency of services, Beilun managed to combine the authorization of entry-exit permits and work permits for overseas engineers in June 2021, enabling the two permits to be issued almost simultaneously, the first of its kind in Ningbo.

In 2021, Beilun received more than 3,000 resumes from overseas candidates with a doctorate and ultimately selected 1,000 who fit its industrial layout and strategic emerging industries. A regional talent pool has thus been established to strengthen, complement and expand the original industrial chains in Beilun.

To better empower the district's manufacturing industry, the overseas engineers center streamlined the district's list of single-product champion enterprises, listed companies and "little giant companies"– leading SMEs with high growth potential, advanced technology and strong market competitive edge. Likewise, a joint service list for these 120 enterprises was formulated. The center staff visited the enterprises 220 times and concluded that there were 960 demands for talent and 200 for technological assistance.

By November 2021, the center introduced 340 top professionals to 82 enterprises, and 62 professionals were contracted.

"Beilun has established a talent introduction network covering countries and regions such as the U.K., Central and Eastern Europe, North America, Germany, Japan and South Africa," said the official from Beilun's science and technology bureau.

Observing the principles of "co-sharing talent and resources, co-building platforms, and jointly meeting challenges," Beilun is sparing no effort to establish a centralized service platform for overseas engineers, innovate an integrated platform for talent resources, build a precise docking platform for technological supply and demand, and provide quality services to overseas talent. It is believed that more and more enterprises in Beilun will be empowered to break various bottlenecks in the fields of technology, management and marketing, and finally step onto the world stage.

Content created in partnership with Science and Technology Daily.

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