Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Wednesday required relevant departments to further improve the living and working conditions of overseas talents.

"We are instituting a regulation on improving the working and living situation of overseas talents in China and its draft will be discussed in the State Council later this year," Wen told a gathering of about 30 overseas talents in the Great Hall of the People.

On behalf of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council, China's cabinet, Wen sent his warm greetings to the experts and their families as the Chinese lunar New Year draws near.

"Introducing talents from the outside is as important as attracting investment and advanced technologies in our opening-up efforts," Wen said.

Wen thanked the experts for their devotion to the Chinese cause of revolution and economic construction in the past decades. He said the Chinese people will never forget their painstaking efforts and contributions.

Some overseas experts, such as American translator Sidney Shapiro and Nobel laureate Chen Ning Yang, raised their concerns and suggestions for the Chinese social and economic construction and Wen answered their questions on the occasion.

(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2006)