At the 2019 Hainan High-level Entrepreneurship Forum held on 24 September, Wang Huiyao, Counsellor of the State Council and Vice President of China Talent Research, pointed to Hainan’s ability to draw talents from around the world as the key to the success of the FTA and free-trade port.
Wang delivered a speech titled “Innovation and Entrepreneurship of International Talents in China and the Development of Hainan FTA (Free Trade Port)”. Based on his research in human resources development in and beyond China in the context of globalization, he shared ideas about how Hainan could open up a new way to nurture and attract talents to innovate and start businesses in the province and how Hainan may set itself apart from other FTAs in this competition.
According to him, the migration of talents is an important part of the commercial tide in a globalized world. To stand out in global competition, the inflow of talents is crucial. Describing the global talents flow, he showed in graphs that migrants with higher education backgrounds are growing fast in number, the increase of individuals going overseas for studies is outpacing the development of higher education, and highly skilled migrants are hotly pursued by all nations. A stronger talent network and greater ease of communication often results in higher productivity and better human resources development.
“Hainan must step up their effort to attract the best minds in the world in order to accelerate quality growth,” he observed. A good way to start is to make full use of the 12-point FTA migrant policy introduced by the National Immigration Administration this year and take innovative steps based on Hainan’s strengths as an FTA and a free-trade port to derive benefits.
On how to implement the program of “one million talents for Hainan”, Wang suggests the province open more international colleges together with foreign partners, including a Belt and Road college, hold innovation and entrepreneurship contests to bring to the island talents from across the world, and streamline recognition procedures for cross-border professional qualifications, so that more talents from Hong Kong, Macao and other parts of the world would consider Hainan a good choice for their career.
He also believes Hainan should develop itself into a free port for international talents by simplifying its entry and exit policies. It would be advisable to build an international talent exchange center for ASEAN countries to attract skilled professionals and create more job opportunities; it could also consider issuing visas for summer interns, tourists, and entrepreneurs from developed countries to encourage young professionals to pursue their development in Hainan.
