MORE than 490 overseas graduates had been recruited to work in Shenzhen at the close of three promotional meetings by a Shenzhen delegation Sunday in Silicon Valley, in the U.S.About 4,200 interested overseas students took part in the three sessions that lasted more than 10 days in Toronto, Canada, and New York and San Francisco in the U.S., local Chinese-language media reported yesterday.

　Around 1,700 people rushed to the last meeting in Silicon Valley, a record number for the three promotional meetings. Many of them brought with them their own technological results and many had graduated from prestigious universities with experience in hi-tech enterprises, reports said.

　Chen An’ren, director of the Shenzhen Municipal Personnel Bureau, said the promotional sessions had been warmly welcomed by overseas Chinese graduates.

　Some even drove 10 hours from the U.S. to Canada to the Toronto meeting. The New York meeting lured many financial personnel who had asked for special leave from their employers since the meeting was held last Wednesday.

　Half of the participants are holders of doctorate degrees and most had majors in electronic information, bioengineering and finance, according to Chen.In another development, a promotional meeting for the Fourth China Hi-Tech Fair held there on the same day also yielded a satisfactory result, with 38 overseas Chinese students deciding to participate in the fair this October.

　Representing 52 organizations, the Shenzhen delegation offered 471 positions for overseas high-flying professionals and 212 projects for overseas partners. It is Shenzhen’s largest overseas promotion in scale over the past 10 years. The number of positions and projects the promotion offers is a historical high.

　The highest annual salary offered by a private enterprise is US$300,000.Shenzhen had attracted 573 returned Chinese students this year, double the number for the same time last year.(Li Jing)