Registration for the 2024 Anhui Oversea Chinese Innovation Competition and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Team Contest of the Hefei National High-tech Industry Development Zone started on Sept. 2.

The competition will be divided into two groups: the high-tech zone division and the overseas division, seeking qualified sci-tech innovation projects from all over the world. Submissions must conform to the industrial development trends of the Hefei high-tech zone as well as boast core technologies and independent intellectual property rights.

The competition will focus on key emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, aerospace information, new generation information technology, and biomedicine. About 150 projects are set to compete for 15 awards. The innovation teams to launch their projects in the zone will receive a bonus of 600,000 yuan ($84,524.4).

Aiming to attract talented professionals across the world, the competition gives full play to Anhui’s manpower advantages, and encourages overseas Chinese and foreign talent to start business in the province. Integrating talent with industry, and innovation with entrepreneurship, the contest is expected to collect more talent, technologies, industries, and capital in the region, so as to promote economic development in the zone.

According to preliminary data, Anhui is now home to more than 10,000 enterprises invested by overseas Chinese. Their aggregate investment accounts for approximately 60% of Anhui's total foreign investment. 

In recent years, Anhui has put the advantages of overseas Chinese to good use in technological, capital, and professional fields, and supported overseas Chinese as they pursue innovation and start business, providing new momentum for economic and social development in the province.