China Releases Notice on Thousand Foreign Experts Plan for 2013

Mar. 12 – China’s State Administration of Foreign Expert Affairs (SAFEA) recently released the “Supplementary Notice on Commencing Applications for the ‘Thousand Foreign Experts Plan’ of 2013 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Notice’),” which lays out the specific requirements for eligible candidates under the Thousand Foreign Experts Plan. The Notice supplements the “Notice on Applying for the 2013 ‘Thousand Talents Plan‘ (zutingzi [2013] No.4), which provides general guidelines for all plans pertaining to introducing foreign talent into China.

Entities applying under the Thousand Foreign Experts Plan should be wholly Chinese entities (preferably enterprises) with no foreign investment. The plan specifically addresses foreign experts of non-Chinese origin who will be involved in long-term projects – they should work in China no less than nine months each year for at least three consecutive years. Applicants should not be currently working full-time in China; and those who are already working in China should not have exceeded one year’s stay in China.

The candidate should also fulfill the general requirements listed under the Thousand Talents Plan, except that the age limitation for the Thousand Foreign Experts Plan can be extended from 55 years old to 65 years old.

The Thousand Foreign Experts Plan focuses on introducing foreign talent in high-tech fields such as:

• Energy conservation and environment protection;
• New generation information technology;
• Biotechnology;
• High-end equipment manufacturing;
• New energy; and
• New materials.

Experts involved in the humanities and social sciences will not be considered under this plan.

Successful candidates will be able to enjoy preferential policies and treatment with regard to exit and entry, residence, medical and insurance, accommodation, taxation and salary. They will also receive a lump-sum subsidy of RMB1 million.

A contract or cooperative agreement should be signed between the candidate and the entity initiating the project. Each candidate can apply a maximum of two times, but not successively.

The deadline for the upcoming round of applications is April 30, 2013. Relevant forms and templates for application materials can be downloaded from www.1000plan.org.

Further information can be obtained by contacting SAFEA via the details listed below.

• Contacts: Jia Wang, Yan Zong
• Phone: 010-68948899*50511, 010-68948899*50633, 010-68948986
• Email: wangjia@safea.gov.cn, zongyan@safea.gov.cn

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