A global job fair opening today at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center has 30,000 vacancies to attract foreign experts and overseas-educated Chinese professionals.

One-third of the posts offer an annual salary above 200,000 yuan (US$27,027).

The 2007 Conference on International Exchange of Professionals sets strict requirements for visitors. Bachelor degree holders are required to have at least four years of working experience and holders of a master's degree two years.

It is the first time the city has held such a fair. The two-day event is at Hall A.

According to an agreement between the Shenzhen Municipal Government and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, the initiator of the conference, the annual fair will be held in Shenzhen until 2009.

The conference, which was initiated in 2001, has been held in Beijing, Nanjing and Shenyang.

According to Peng Jing, executive marketing director of WesternHR, one of the organizers, the fair is expected to attract 3,000 overseas experts and overseas-educated Chinese, and 800 human resources firms, training institutions and expert institutions.

"The conference will help the government expand its channels to recruit foreign experts," Shenzhen Mayor Xu Zongheng said at an interview earlier in the week with International Talent, a monthly magazine based in Beijing.

Shenzhen is showing growing demand for international professionals, Xu said.

In 2005, more than 10,000 overseas experts were working in the city, the most in Guangdong and the second- biggest number for major Chinese cities. Among the experts, 30 percent were senior executives in enterprises and institutions, and 40 percent worked as technicians and engineers.

Nine foreign experts in Shenzhen have won Friendship Awards conferred on them by the Central Government for their outstanding contributions to China's economic and social development. Another 21 have won Guangdong Friendship Awards.

(Shenzhen Daily November 30, 2003)