International companies in China have launched a fierce campaign to lure and recruit talented students from prestigious universities.

Experts have repeatedly pointed out that after China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the lack of high-quality human resources will be a big problem for China.

More and more foreign enterprises that have entered the Chinese market have come to realize that employing local talent helps them blend better into Chinese markets and culture.

According to sources from the employment centre of Tsinghua University, about 18 world-renowned transnational companies, including McKinsey, have held job fairs at Tsinghua this week.

Peking University, another prestigious school, will also have famous international enterprises, such as L'Oreal, IBM, Shell, British American Tobacco, HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), Standard Chartered, flooding in to hire highly skilled students next week.

Many foreign enterprises got a month's head start on the busy season of recruitment by putting information about job opportunities on the Internet. Some companies like Colgate and IBM started collecting CV's over the Internet in October.

Chen Jihe, director of the Tsinghua employment centre, said that an increasing number of foreign enterprises in China are now focusing on famous domestic schools.

Some of the companies said they want to launch cooperative projects with these universities to develop professional talent for students still in their junior years, Chen said.

Chen pointed out that domestic enterprises have not lost their advantage in the market for competition scouting, saying that many Tsinghua students have applied for jobs with distinguished domestic companies such as China Telecom and China Unicom.

(11/26/2001, Xinhua)