Morita Lee, a senior Japanese engineer who has just been in Shanghai for
three months, is one of more than 36,000 foreigners now working in the booming
city.
He has taken up his new management position in Olympus' Shanghai branch.
The foreign employees come from 102 countries, mostly from Japan, the USA and
South Korea.
The number of non-Chinese working in the city has been rising over the past
five years, says the Shanghai Administrative Centre for Employment of Foreigners
(SACEF) under the Shanghai Municipal Labour and Social Security Bureau (SLSS).
SACEF director Sun Hande said there are more in Shanghai than any other major
cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
That's because Shanghai, as the country's economic centre, offers more
vacancies requiring a high professional level, he said.
The director estimated that the number of new foreign workers will increase
by 38 per cent in 2004 and is expected to grow even faster next year.
Data from the bureau shows that 85 per cent of foreigners work in
foreign-funded companies or are representative agents of foreign firms.
Sun said only 13.9 per cent of them work in domestic companies.
"More than 70 per cent of these foreigners are taking up management
positions, and another 15 per cent are engineers or senior engineers," Sun said
"The city now has at least 3,600 foreign general managers."
Official figures also show that more than 90 per cent of them have university
or post-graduate degrees.
They seem to feel the city has many opportunities for them to develop their
careers.
Nattavij Tevahudee, a Thai architect at the Shanghai branch of FRI
Architecture, a France-based architecture design company, said working in
Shanghai was extremely exciting.
"As far as the architecture business is concerned, China is really growing
more rapidly when compared with my home country Thailand and France, where I got
my master's degree," said Tevahudee.
He said Shanghai was the fastest-growing place in China and many more
construction projects had been launched in the public sector and in the
commercial and residential sectors.
"Working in the city, I get more chances to improve my professionalism
through a succession of projects I am engaged in," Tevahudee said.
Apart from more chances to practise professional skills, these non-Chinese
feel they also have a better chance of getting promoted.
John Mampilly, the chief representative of Wipro Limited, a well-known Indian
Information Technology consultancy, said the prosperous IT sector meant some of
his compatriots working in the cities had won easy promotions to management.
Mampilly said that as the IT sector is still a burgeoning industry in
Shanghai, there are more business opportunities but less competition. Overseas
professionals can more easily develop their businesses, improve their work
performance and find recognition for the work they do.
Most of those in Shanghai also hold that the city offers a good living
environment.
"Shanghai's infrastructure is good and public transport is very convenient,"
said Tevahudee.
Mampilly did mention some downsides - like the rush hour traffic congestion,
and that although the Shanghainese were very friendly to work with they did not
offer much in the way of social life for outsiders.
He said some Indian families working here had experienced difficulties in
finding schools for their children.
Guangdong needs overseasa talents
South China's Guangdong Province is is planning to attract residents from
Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions to work in its government
departments, bureaux, organizations and State-owned enterprises.
The city needs professionals and experts to boost its fast and sustainable
economic growth.
The province The move aims to raise the province's work efficiency and try to
keep the government operation in line with international practice.
Guangdong will also seek to expand its civil servants' exchanges with
neighbouring Hong Kong and Macao, according to an official from Guangdong
Provincial Bureau of Personnel.
Every year, more than 93,000 Hong Kong residents arrive in Guangdong to seek
job opportunities, said He Jinsheng, an official from the provincial personnel
bureau.
The province is now competing with Beijing and Shanghai to attract overseas
professionals.
In October, Guangdong officially introduced a "green card" system to help woo
offshore personnel as well as investors from outside the mainland.
Compared with other major metropolises and regions in the mainland, Guangdong
has even more preferential policies, He said.
The prosperous province, one of China's economic powerhouses, expects to be
able to attract more top professionals in marketing, enterprise management,
logistics, tourism, biological engineering, automobiles, electronics, foreign
trade, information technology, petrochemicals and finance industries in the
years ahead.
The Guangdong Provincial Regulations on Attracting Professionals from
Overseas says all overseas personnel who have been granted a green card in
Guangdong Province enjoy the same privileges as locals apart from the right to
vote and stand for election,
These include medical treatment, social welfare, housing, children's
education, house purchase and cars and applying for a driver's licence.
In previous years, only local residents who have 'hukou,' or household
registration, in the province, could enjoy these privileges.
Based on Guangdong's good living and working environment and the geographical
position,
He believes Guangdong, especially the prosperous cities in the Pearl River
Delta, will become a prime destination for overseas professionals, including
compatriots from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.
As well as foreign-funded companies and joint ventures, State-owned
enterprises, universities and colleges, financial institutions and companies are
also showing an interest in recruiting professionals from abroad.
Guangzhou-based Jinan University has just decided to conduct a worldwide
search for 10 presidents for its colleges and schools early this year.
In August, three Hong Kong University graduates were recruited by the
Guangzhou Metro Corporation.
More than 350,000 overseas personnel, including compatriots from Hong Kong,
Taiwan and Macao, are now working in Guangdong Province.
More than 80 per cent of them are living in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai,
Foshan, Zhongshan, Dongguan and Huizhou in the prosperous Pearl River Delta.
In Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, alone, there are more than
100,000 overseas personnel.
Lin Yuanhe, vice-mayor of Guangzhou, has attributed the city's growing number
of overseas professionals to the good living and working environment in the
southern metropolis.
