At this year's China Wealth Forum in Qingdao, Shandong province, experts agreed that the key to rapidly developing an international wealth management center in the city is attracting talented financial professionals.

During the past 15 years, the city has attracted more than 8,500 overseas professionals as well as a great number of high-tech projects and research institutions, according to the Qingdao Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security.

Different from the conventional talent-attracting strategies in other cities in China, Qingdao has set up 20 working groups focused on talent attraction from foreign countries, holding a number of job fairs abroad to recruit targeted professionals.

But Qingdao has also made efforts in cultivating local human resources.

This year, a number of research institutions and financial education bases have been established in Qingdao to develop technologies and provide training.

In addition, the city has cooperated with renowned higher learning institutes such as Tsinghua University and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics to train professionals.

"In fact, Qingdao doesn't lack talented people in the financial professions," said Xu Chuanyong, an EMBA student at a program established by SUFE Qingdao Wealth Management Institute. He is also the general manager at Qingdao Huashang Huitong.

"The key point is to activate local professionals and give them more opportunities to equip themselves rather than just introducing foreign talent. That will double the effect in the construction of Qingdao as a regional financial center," Xu said.

Zhou Zulei contributed to the story.

(China Daily 10/26/2016 page12)