Returned overseas students in Shanghai are applying for civil servant posts as a result of policy change.

Together with over 20,000 other candidates, 178 people who studied at foreign universities took part in the municipality's civil servant test Sunday.

It is one of the steps being taken by the Shanghai city government to introduce advanced managerial ideas and methods in order to build a modern government, sources from the municipal personnel bureau said.

The issue of establishing new human resources concepts and practices during China's transformation from a planned to a market economy has attracted wide attention.

A national conference on human resources development was held in Beijing on Friday and Saturday, the first of its kind since the founding of New China in 1949.

President Hu Jintao said the nation's revitalization strategy based on human resources development should be taken as a major and pressing task of the State.

He said the strategy is vital for upgrading the country's competitiveness and improving comprehensive national strength, and imperative if wanting to complete the ambitious plan of building a well-off society.

"Human resources are the first primary resources in China, and the country should be turned from a populous nation into a big nation with abundant talented human resources," the president said.

Experts applauded the adoption of the move, saying it is a historic breakthrough in the government's attitude toward development.

"The human resources market is no longer divided into the labour market and the so-called talent market, in which workers, no matter how skillful and competent, are considered to be at a lower social stratum than professionals with college degrees," said Kang Xiaoguang, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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