German national and resident of Xi'an Dieter Michell-Auli, along with 19 other foreign residents, has been invited to serve as a local police supervisor, sources with the Xi'an Exit-entry Administration said on Friday.

Dieter is the general manager of a local venture belonging to Siemens, while the other foreign residents are all experts from local universities or businessmen working for Chinese or foreign companies. All of them travel frequently and are very familiar with the immigration entry and exit service in Xi'an.

"We hope that these supervisors will help us to improve our service, such as staff's attitudes, efficiency and probity," said Wang Zhiqiang, director of the local exit-entry administration.

There are about 2,100 foreign residents in Xi'an, the capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, which received 678,000 foreign visitors in 2002.

(Xinhua News Agency April 19, 2003)