MORE than 4,500 overseas professional organizations, training institutes, universities, agents and technology companies from 70 countries and regions will participate in the two-day Conference on the International Exchange of Professionals (CIEP), which will be held at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center on Saturday, April 16.

The number of professional visitors from overseas will reach 12,000 and 300 overseas Chinese students will bring their projects to find investment at the conference, the organizer said.

The fair organizer has invited 160 organizations to share information with mainland agencies.

The organizations are mostly technology-focused and include the UK-China Culture and Technology Exchange Association.

Taiwan confirmed a delegation of 20 members and Hong Kong will send 60 agencies, including the Beijing-Hong Kong Academic Exchange Center, the Hong Kong Chinese Innovation and Entrepreneurship Association, and the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park Corporation.

A highlight of the event is the China (Shenzhen) Innovation Competition of International Talents, with a final contest to be held Friday, April 15, in Longgang District. Twenty-five projects, which were selected after five preliminaries in Sydney in Australia, Munich in Germany, Tel Aviv in Israel, Tokyo in Japan and Silicon Valley in the United States, will compete for US$880,000 in awards.

The winning projects will get investment from a pool of US$100 million, which was put forward by 56 venture capital companies in Shenzhen.

The project recognized at the final contest will receive up to US$3.8 million in financial support from the municipal government.

Highlights of CIEP

Exhibition and conference

The conference this year covers 65,000 square meters. Exhibitions will be held in halls 1 through 5. Conferences and seminars will also be held in the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center.

Hall 1: Talent Introduction.

Hall 2: Job Fair for Chinese College Graduates.

Hall 3: Job Fair for Intermediary and Senior Professionals.

Hall 4: Investment Exchange Fair for International Software Professionals and Projects.

Hall 5: Global Talent Forum.

Topics

The conference is subdivided into 16 categories including exhibition negotiations, talent recruitment, project matchmaking and professional training.

Job fairs

Job fairs targeting professionals, college graduates and foreign job seekers will be held during the fair. Some job fairs for professionals in Internet, software and IT will also be held. The job fairs offer a total of 35,000 vacancies.

Forums

The Global Intelligence Forum will see seven economists, 15 experts and 36 business executives give speeches.

Software talent

The organizer invited software institutes from more than 50 universities, including the Beijing Institute of Technology, the University of Science and Technology of China, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Tianjin University and Wuhan University to attend the matchmaking activities with 19 software professional training bases, 200 IT enterprises and investment agencies in Hall 4, which has an exhibition area of 7,500 square meters.

Background

The CIEP was first held in 2001 and was organized by China’s State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs.

The Conference on International Exchange of Professionals is the only State-level, international, and comprehensive talent exchange fair in China, serving foreign-expert organizations and training institutions. Shenzhen has been hosting the conference since 2007