Chen Wenjun:

Due to time constraints, we will have one last question, please.

Hong Kong Bauhinia Magazine:

Anhui is now a province with net population inflows. What are the major reasons for that? What measures have been taken to attract talents and encourage business startups? Thank you.

Wang Qingxian:

I'll take this question. Just as you mentioned, Anhui province has demonstrated an increasingly clear momentum toward net population inflows. According to our analysis, two reasons have contributed to this. One reason is that more and more people from other provinces are working in Anhui province. The other reason is that more and more people from Anhui province choose to seek jobs and work here. Last year, there was a net increase of 219,000 people in Hefei, ranking top among cities in the Yangtze River Delta. These net population inflows show a sound economic development momentum in Anhui province, with more job opportunities, improved quality of employment, better pay packages, and broader opportunities for business startups.

In order to attract talents and encourage entrepreneurship, the provincial Party committee and provincial people's government have launched a workforce development project in Anhui province, a series of programs for talents to tour Anhui province, and advanced business startup programs in Anhui province. Through interactions between technologies, talents, capitals, and scenarios, we have enabled more young people to innovate and start businesses and have particularly created more opportunities in new technologies, industries, business forms, and models. We have set up a "fund jungle" to support entrepreneurship and adopted a series of measures to encourage the development of patient capital that invests in small businesses in the early development stages and in sci-tech companies, with the scale of private equity fund products reaching a record 1.68 trillion yuan, ranking seventh in China. We have taken innovative steps to launch a joint development project to support sci-tech companies, and loans to sci-tech companies have grown rapidly, from over 150 billion yuan in 2021 to nearly 600 billion yuan in 2023. To support entrepreneurship, we have created more entrepreneurial scenarios. For example, Hefei has taken the lead in building China's first all-space unmanned system application program and has gathered over 100 low-altitude-economy enterprises in about a year. At present, there is a strong atmosphere of innovation in Anhui province, especially in Hefei and Wuhu. For example, there are sci-tech salons and lectures, as well as various academic seminars. The whole city is immersed in an atmosphere of science and technology innovation.

Talents play a core role in achieving Anhui province's objectives of creating a source for sci-tech innovation, a cluster of strategic emerging industries, a pacesetter of reform and opening-up, and a region of the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development. They're also important for building Anhui province into a leading province in science and technology, as well as the manufacturing, agriculture, ecology, talents, education, and culture sectors. We will embrace talents from all over the world with enthusiasm, sincerity, and an open mind. We are willing to work with you to achieve things together. 

Lastly, I sincerely invite you to go and see the changes in Anhui province for yourself, and to witness what the four of us have presented here today. Thank you all.

Chen Wenjun:

Thanks to Mr. Wang and all the other three speakers. Thanks to friends from the media. Today's briefing is hereby concluded. Goodbye.

Wang Qingxian:

Thank you all, and you are welcome to visit Anhui.

Translated and edited by Zhang Rui, Zhu Bochen, Liu Jianing, Wang Yanfang, Liu Caiyi, Wang Ziteng, Lin Liyao, Xu Kailin, Wang Wei, Huang Shan, Yuan Fang, Liu Sitong, Zhang Junmian, Li Huiru, David Ball, Jay Birbeck, and Rochelle Beiersdorfer. In case of any discrepancy between the English and Chinese texts, the Chinese version is deemed to prevail.