China is attracting more foreign experts to work in the country due to rapid, stable economic achievement and an improved working environment.

The number of foreign experts had risen to more than 400,000, said Zhang Jianguo, deputy director of the State Bureau of Foreign Experts Affairs.

In the early years of opening-up, foreign experts worked mostly in the fields of production, education and news publishing, said Zhang. However, nowadays their choices extended to law, finance, major projects and government affairs covering all Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and cities.

Zhang was speaking at a seminar marking the 20th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping's speech on "utilizing foreign intelligence and expanding the opening to the outside world" held in Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province in Northwest China.

In 1983, late leader Deng Xiaoping spoke of the importance of utilizing foreign intelligence to speed up China's modernization drive.

(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2003)