Expats vote for Chinese cities

Recently, results of the 2012 Amazing China - The Most Attractive Chinese Cities for Foreigners were released, with Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Kunming, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, Xiamen and Qingdao listed as the top 10.

Apart from the 10 most attractive Chinese cities, the survey also included China’s top 8 eye-popping cities. They are Jinan and Chengdu, for their policy environment; Shenyang and Hefei for their political environment; Chongqing and Zhengzhou for their working environment, and Dalian and Wuhan for their living environment.

The selection process began in September 2012 and ended the following December, while attracting a total number of 175,400 foreign experts to participate in the voting process. The ballot included all Chinese cities (Mainland, excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) at the prefecture level or above.

According to the analysis conducted by a professional consulting agency on the collected data, there are several problems that exist with China’s efforts to attract more foreign talent to the country.

First and foremost, the distribution of foreign talent is geographically unbalanced. Take the issue of the number of Chinese green cards for example, as green card holders are mainly concentrated in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Another issue is only 3 percent of foreign expatriates want to settle in China, while the support system needs to be improved. China’s robust economy has attracted many foreigners to live and invest here; they even view China as the new ideal immigration destination. However, visa problems, children’s education, medical services and environmental issues all count for big problems for foreigners who want to move to the Middle Kingdom. In order to have more foreign talent working and living in China, the above problems need to be fully addressed.