Cities must exercise caution in talent hunt

Some cities, including Wuhan, Chengdu and Tianjin, as well as Hainan province have joined the competition for talents, sparking concerns that the heated competition may distort the aims of the hunt for talents. Three experts share their views on the issue with China Daily’s Liu Jianna. Excerpts follow: those cities, from qualifying as real talents.

Thus local governments should work out a more refined and scientific program to attract talents. In other words, the local talentintroduction program should match the local conditions.

But since housing prices in some of these cities, Chengdu for example, have also sharply risen recently, some people say the talent-attracting program has led to the loosening of home-purchase restrictions and thus pushed up property prices. They also accuse the local governments of trying to covertly boost the real estate market.

People holding such a view have put the cart before the horse. Many talents in high-tech industries in big cities are not qualified to buy houses due to the home-purchase restrictions, which has significantly lowered their quality of life and reduced the attractions of big cities. Therefore, if those new first- and second-tier cities want to attract and keep talents, they must find a way to better accommodate them. In that sense, it is necessary to relax the property-purchase restrictions for talents.

Cai Yifei, a researcher at the Institute of Population and Labor Economics, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

As to the housing price rises in some cities, both the pros and cons have to be taken into consideration. The flocking of talents to a city will help fuel economic development and benefit all the residents, as well as help raise the consumption level and drive up property prices. So even though talents facilitate development and presage a brighter future for all, the local governments should walk a fine line between attracting talents and curbing housing prices.

SHI YU / CHINA DAILY