Southern Chinese city of Guangzhou recently launched a special "Kapok Plan", aiming to lure overseas talents to start businesses in Guangzhou, while offering them with subsidies.

According to the program, Guangzhou will introduce approximately 30 startups set up by overseas talents annually from May 2018 and provide a subsidy of 2 million yuan ($303,000) to each of the projects. The projects will cover areas of industries involved in the city's highlighted IAB Initiative (referring to industries of next generation of information technology, artificial intelligence and biological medicine) and NEM Initiative (referring to industries of new energy and new material).  

The plan also lays out a raft of special privileges that the returned talents will enjoy in terms of business registration, tax payment, bank loan, housing and children's education.

For the introduced projects settling in designated industrial parks, houses larger than an area of 500 square meters will be provided for free to the companies for production and office. For companies that have already rented houses, a monthly rent allowance of 35 yuan per square meter will be provided. Overseas talents who decide to settle in Guangzhou will receive a housing allowance of 100,000 yuan.

An overseas talent showcases his robot project at the 2017 Convention on Exchange of Overseas Talents. [Photo/xkb.com.cn]