The government of Shijiazhuang, the capital of North China’s Hebei province, launched a provincial campaign to attract talentand upgrade its intellectual resources, said a government official at the Municipal Conference on Talent Affair on Thursday.

The purpose is to double the intellectual pool in five to ten years, meaning the total number of the city’s professionals is expected to reach 2.61million before the end of 2010, said the Municipal Party Secretary Rui Bin, which will make this city a talent-intensive community in the Beijing-Hebei-Tianjin economic zone.

Breakthroughs must be made in attracting the most needed innovative and entrepreneurial brains, mainly comprising of overseas returnees, experts, people with doctorial degrees and academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The administrative, departmental and status restraints shall be eliminated to ensure a free flow of talents, he added.

A Long and Medium Term Strategy Outline of Shijiazhuang Talents Development was issued at the meeting, prescribing specific objectives for the future talent-pooling.

30 percent of the labor force should receive higher education. 85 percent of people engaging in enterprise management should have a master’s degree, and 80 percent of people working in modern service industries shall have a college degree or above.

By Guo Changdong and Zhang Nan