Talented professionals from around the world will seek entrepreneurial opportunities in the fast-growing industrial city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, at this year's Ventures Week for International Elites, which will last from July 8 to 10.

Launched in 2009, the annual event has developed into a well-known platform through which excellent foreign talent can be drawn to the city through preferential policies and an ever-improving business environment.

Considered China's second-largest industrial city and ranked by US magazine Newsweek as one of the world's nine centers of emerging technologies, Suzhou has successfully transformed from a small city with limited resources into an economic hub that accounts for 2 percent of the whole country's GDP and 9 percent of China's exports.

Among all the factors that have led to Suzhou's success, talent introduction plays the most important role. In 2005, in order to attract professionals that were in short supply, the Suzhou local government offered a subsidy ranging from 50,000 yuan ($7,865) to 1 million yuan to these experts for relocation expenses.

Also, the city launched a high-level creative entrepreneurial talent introduction project in 2006, and they prioritized talent in key areas, including modern communications, nanotechnology and bio-pharmaceuticals. Moreover, the authorities relaxed the restrictions on age, residence registration and educational background.

In 2007, Suzhou implemented a program to introduce leading entrepreneurial talent.

Every year, it will bring in a number of leaders in high tech fields to start businesses there, and the city will provide a relocation subsidy of between 500,000 yuan and 2.5 million yuan.

In addition, scientific research funds ranging from 1 million yuan to 4 million yuan will be available to high-level professionals who qualify, and many will be offered a rent-free workspace of at least 100 square meters for three years.

These funds and facilities will be distributed among the foreign professionals based on the scale and progress of their ventures. These entrepreneurs have access to a maximum 5 million yuan secured loan, a 300,000 yuan subsidy for insurance premiums and 500,000 yuan subsidy for interest.

"Suzhou has been working hard to cultivate, cherish, assemble and utilize talent, and I have practical experience myself in every step," said Zhang Peizhuo, founder of Suzhou GenePharma Co Ltd.

Zhang belongs to the generation born after 1960, and he came back to China to start his business after 10 years abroad. After getting his venture off the ground in Shanghai, he spied an opportunity when Suzhou Industrial Park spent heavily to build its BioBay, and he soon decided to relocate his business there.

In 2009, Zhang was selected in the country's Recruitment Program of Global Experts, a program launched in 2008 that aims to attract about 2,000 scientists and leaders of industry from overseas to the country's key innovative projects, key disciplines and laboratories, high-tech industrial parks, state-owned enterprises and financial institutions over the next decade.

During the period, he participated in a series of national drug research programs. The funding he acquired in Suzhou over these years totaled more than 20 million yuan.

Recently, in a survey organized by the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs, Suzhou ranked seventh among the top 10 Chinese cities in terms of attractiveness to foreign talent.

Suzhou stood out from among 353 candidate cities and was the only city from Jiangsu province selected. At present, the number of foreigners working in Suzhou has reached 14,000.

The total number of professionals in Suzhou has exceeded 1.6 million, and this group maintained a growth rate of more than 15 percent for 10 consecutive years. The number of high-level professionals has hit more than 90,000, with an annual growth rate of more than 20 percent in seven years in a row.

The Recruitment Program's Venture Capital Community was set up in SIP in July 2011. As the first comprehensive investment and financing platform serving the program, it provides professional supporting services for overseas returnees who begin to start their ventures at home. The establishment of the community also accelerated the clustering of entrepreneurial professionals and capital.

The latest statistics show that 258 venture capital investment institutions managing more than 65 billion yuan in capital combined have been founded in Suzhou.

In 2011, Suzhou's GDP totaled 1 trillion yuan, with tax and fee revenue exceeding 300 billion yuan. Suzhou Party Secretary Jiang Hongkun said that imported talent significantly contributed to the economic growth Suzhou achieved last year, when the macroeconomic situation was rather complicated.

In the past three years, a total of more than 3,500 high-level professionals from more than 20 countries have brought as many as 3,644 ventures to the Ventures Week of International Elites in Suzhou.

As of April this year, 512 venture programs have been established in Suzhou in total during the three venture campaigns, with direct investment reaching nearly 4 billion yuan. All of these programs belong to key emerging industries in Suzhou, and 19 of them entered the country's Recruitment Program of Global Experts.

In Jiang's opinion, Suzhou is now developing a unique talent-development system to achieve the strategic target of importing a constant stream of professionals.

Contact the writer at zhuanti@chinadaily.com.cn