(Ecns.cn)--Foreign consultants have infused local Chinese governments with fresh blood in recent years, a topic that Guangdong Province brought to national attention again last month by inviting 15 of its foreign economic consultants to the International Consultative Conference on the Future Economic Development.
All 15 consultants are senior managers at multinational enterprises, except for Jared L. Cohon, who is president of Carnegie Mellon University.
For over a decade, altogether 88 such professionals, including experts, scholars and senior managers from 47 Global 500 companies, have been invited to similar conferences, said Huang Huahua, former governor of Guangdong.
Focused on "Speeding up transformation and upgrading; building new advantages in economic development," they were invited to discuss speeches delivered by vice heads of Guangdong and share their opinions.
A local government official revealed that besides offering advice, foreign business figures also cooperate with or invest in local projects. British Petroleum plans to put in another $600 million in a PTA base in Zhuhai, for example, while the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Novartis AG and General Electric Company also signed contracts with the government.
Data on foreign consultants since 1999 (when the first international consultative conference was held in Guangdong) show that more senior managers in the service industry are also joining the think tank.
Big businessmen from financial giants like the World Bank, Goldman Sachs, Ernst & Young and Merrill Lynch have continued to participate in the conferences. Leading logistics companies such as UPS Supply Chain Solutions have also been on the guests list recently.
This implies that Guangdong is eager to transform from a manufacturing province to an initiator of innovation, pointed out the Yangcheng Evening News.
Zhu Xiaodan, acting governor of Guangdong, added that to give impetus to industrial transformation and upgrading, "we must put developing the modern service industry as the top priority. Otherwise, provincial economic development would stagnate, given the current industrial structure."
"We will also put more efforts into the high-end manufacturing industry, and develop emerging industries of strategic importance," Zhu added.
Guangdong is not the only province to bring in foreign talent. As early as 1989, the mayor of Shanghai began to hire foreigners as economic consultants, following a speech given by late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1983, who called on China to "advance opening-up with the help of foreign brains."
So is Chongqing, which just held an annual consultative conference in September, with Jean-Pascal Tricoire (CEO of Schneider Electric)， Chey Tae-won (chairman of the board at SK Group)， Kunio Ishihara (chairman of the board at Tokio Marine Holdings) and Wim Elfrink (president of Cisco) becoming new consultants to the mayor.
Beijing is also involved. Aimed at bringing in foreign business managers, a conference in 2003 attracted senior leaders from 19 top multinational companies, 18 of which are Global 500.
Even grassroots government, such as sub-district offices, are catching the trend. According to Yunfu Daily, a Secretary of the Party Working Committee in Yunfu, Guangdong, invited five foreign consultants in 2010 to quicken local industrial upgrading. Their routine meetings were mostly focused on "how to cope with the financial crisis and enhance electronics industries."
However, regarding the suggestions provided by foreign talents, Wang Xianqing, director of the Current Economics Research Institute at Guangdong University of Business Studies, commented that many problems raised by the foreign consultants had been studied in detail by Chinese experts long before.
"Governments should take proposals by Chinese experts into consideration too, since the foreigners are not likely to explore certain problems intensively and consecutively for a long time. Most of their consultative reports are based on last-minute preparations. But most Chinese experts tend to conduct systemized research," added Li Minghua, deputy to the people's congress of Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong.
Zhang Ming, an expert in fiscal budgets, noted that "not all ideas of the foreign consultants are innovative, such as those related to 'green economy' and 'low-carbon economy.' Some small- and middle-sized domestic companies have tried to manufacture environmentally-friendly products, but failed due to a lack of financial and governmental support."
But Wang Xianqing added that sometimes valuable advice from foreign talents was ignored. "If both sides only keep to themselves, the conferences would be a mere formality."
At this, Li Minghua pointed out that a scientific and democratic decision-making mechanism should play the key role in reducing poor decisions.
