Hefei builds Service Home for foreign talents

The city of Hefei in Anhui province launched a service center for foreign experts on Monday designed to attract more global talents.

The Service Home for Foreign Experts will be a one-stop service platform for foreign talents who move to Hefei to work for innovation or entrepreneurship. 

The service platform is designed to help foreign experts navigate local life and can call on help if they encounter medical problems, issues relating to their child's education, or are seeking financial and legal services, etc.

In addition, the Hefei International Talent City, which will host the Service Home for Foreign Experts, has also set up business consulting services to help foreigners with their work permits, residence permits, and high-level talent classification recognition. The building also encompasses a modern foreign expert library, shared office space, and in the future will hold a series of lectures on innovation and entrepreneurship, integrating a variety of service functions.

The Hefei International Talent City is an international talent community and a comprehensive platform designed to foster exchange and entrepreneurship between government, enterprises, social organizations, and professionals. China.org.cn learned from the local government that more than 5,000 domestic and foreign talents visit the area to consult and handle business each year.

Attended by more than 30 foreign representatives, the Hefei International Talent City signed cooperation agreements with Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital, China Unicom's Hefei branch, Huaxia Bank, AllBright Law Offices' Hefei branch, and the Sino-Canada Concord School of Hefei High Tech Zone to provide the services mentioned above. 

"The launch of the service center, on one hand, is to deeply implement our strategy of 'gathering talents from all over the world,' and further promote the implementation of technological innovation and policies to attract talents to tell Chinese stories and spread Chinese culture," said Lu Ping, deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Working Committee of Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone. "On the other hand, it is designed to provide talent support to build a comprehensive national science center, as well as develop zones of innovations, digital economy, advanced manufacturing industries, foreign investment, and high-quality ecology in Hefei, and to make foreign experts feel at home."

After the unveiling of the foreign expert service center, organizers gave guests and foreign representatives a tour of the local Xinhua Academy, an international private school that provides a top international education for students from kindergarten through to grade 12. Children from around the world gather on campus to learn from international teachers, providing a promising picture of how children of international talents who choose to come to China can receive a top education and become future pillar talents.

Hefei city is also home to China Speech Valley, the first national industrial park to focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent speech and a powerful engine for the development of the city's AI industry. Numerous high-tech companies call the city home, including iFlytek, one of the world's leading AI and speech technology companies; BOE Technology Group, a major intelligent interface products manufacturer that also provides professional services for information interaction and human health; Sungrow, one of the world's most bankable inverter brands in the development and production of photovoltaic inverter technology and a leading provider of intelligent energy solutions; and Huami Corp, a US-listed maker of smart wearables.

In recent years, Hefei has excelled in scientific and technological innovation and talent attraction. In the latest Nature Index 2020 Science Cities ranking published in September, Hefei ranked 20th among global cities. Since 2017, Hefei has also ranked in the top six "Amazing China: Most Attractive Chinese Cities for Foreigners" for three consecutive years, a survey conducted by the Information and Research Center of the Foreign Talents of the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs and the magazine of International Talent Exchange. 

Official figures show that there are currently 4,923 long-term foreign talents residing in Hefei. By the end of October, approximately 150 top experts were working in Hefei on a talent visa.