The Taihu Talent Summit 2021 was held in the city of Wuxi in East China's Jiangsu province from Oct 18-20.

Themed on the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta region and the construction of the Taihu Bay Sci-tech Innovation Belt, the summit showcases the importance of talent to Wuxi, which is currently strengthening its innovation, finance, services and brands.

The summit invited 29 overseas academicians to share their talent-related opinions and programs. The academicians specialize in fields such as life sciences, IT, intelligent manufacturing, energy conservation and environmental protection.

At the opening ceremony, famous economist Ren Zeping said that talent attraction is presently a major issue for Chinese cities due to the aging population.

During a round-table conference on human resource management on Oct 19, participants discussed ways to better attract and retain Generation Z – people born from 1996-2012 – talent to companies.

Liu Xuezhi, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Personnel Science, said that there is currently too much focus on academic degrees, certificates and awards in the existing talent system.

He also emphasized the need to match enterprises' real needs with talent supply and suggested that Wuxi, which is renowned for being a manufacturing city, identify its own advantages to pursue its own development trajectory.