HARBIN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Located in the suburban area of the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province in northeast China, Feihe Dairy's intelligent industrial park, featuring many glass walls, looks more like an exhibition center than a busy factory.

 

Walking around the park covering an area of over 360,000 square meters, not many workers can be seen -- except for some researchers involved in experiments in a lab and several monitoring staff sitting in the central control center.

 

The factory conducts 24-hour full-process tracking and monitoring, as well as 25 inspection procedures and 411 tests, throughout the processing of fresh milk into finished products. The vast base employs only about 200 people, as highly automated production has turned the production base into what is often called a Dark Factory, hinting at having no need for lights due to the lack of direct human input in the production process.

 

The industrial park also showcases China's first automatic production line for lactoferrin, a breakthrough achieved after six years of research and development (R&D). The dairy brand saw its R&D investment grow at a compound annual rate of 41 percent during the 2018-2023 period.

 

Scenes like this can be seen in a growing number of sectors in China, with automatic and digital transformation, empowered by enhanced investment in innovation, reducing the previous heavy reliance on manual labor, but resulting in a need for more tech-savvy people.

 

Despite dips in the working population, China still boasts a vast workforce that is lending fresh steam to the country's economic growth with increased professional know-how, highly practical skills and stronger R&D capabilities. A labor army consisting of a more innovative and productive workforce is in the making.

 

PROFESSIONAL TECHNICIANS

 

The Chinese government has recognized the nurturing of skilled personnel as an important strategy and task in promoting the development and utilization of human resources, as well as a key pillar needed to underpin China's industrial upgrading.

 

Currently, there are more than 200 million skilled workers in China, including over 60 million highly-skilled professionals.

 

China has proposed to promote the establishment of a modern vocational education system, and by the end of 2025, the country's skilled professionals are expected to account for more than 30 percent of the total employed population, with one third of skilled personnel being highly-skilled talent.

 

Vocational colleges across China are renewing their courses to cater to the need of evolving industries.

 

To serve growing unmanned service scenarios, Luohe Technician College in central China's Henan Province established service robotics as a major in 2021. A year later, two students from this college won the gold medal for China in the Mobile Robotics contest of the World Skills Competition.

 

Tailor-made training programs are developed to cater to the needs of industrial upgrading, said the college's president Ma Zhanxin, adding that their graduates "don't have to worry about finding jobs."

 

SOPHISTICATED R&D TALENT

 

China has the world's largest stock of R&D talent, forming a solid human capital base for the country's innovation-driven development.

 

Notably, the number of full-time equivalent R&D personnel in China had increased from 3.247 million in 2012 to 6.354 million in 2022.

 

In addition, more outstanding young talent are taking the lead in major national sci-tech tasks. Over 80 percent of researchers participating in national key R&D programs are under the age of 45.

 

To expand its top-notch talent pool, China has stepped up education in terms of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors. In 2023, majors in science, engineering, agriculture and medicine accounted for about 60 percent of the total enrollment of postgraduate students and more than 80 percent of the total enrollment of doctoral students in China.

 

UNESCO, meanwhile, last year decided to establish the UNESCO International Institute for STEM Education in Shanghai, the first Category 1 Institute of UNESCO located outside Europe and the United States.

 

"The institute will help deepen reforms in STEM education in China and improve the quality of sci-tech innovative talent," said Qin Changwei, secretary-general of the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO.

 

UNLEASHING PRODUCTIVITY VIA REFORM

 

To give full play to the innovation capabilities and potential of talent, the government, universities and companies have kept rolling out supportive policies to encourage R&D and entrepreneurship.

 

A pilot program to reform the evaluation mechanism of sci-tech professionals is in full swing in 21 institutions and universities and six provincial-level regions, seeking to direct high-quality manpower to fields that are especially important for promoting sci-tech innovation and economic growth.

 

China has in recent years witnessed a race among localities to attract talent. Two years after introducing a raft of 60 steps to attract, retain and nurture talented people, Heilongjiang saw its talent pool expanded by over 260,000 people -- reversing a previous tide that saw the outflow of senior professional staff at universities.

 

China's broad development platforms and prospects have also attracted many talented foreigners, while convincing some Chinese to return to China to further their careers.

 

Nieng Yan, a well-known structural biologist, resigned from Princeton University in the U.S. in 2022 and returned to China, where she helped build and now heads a medical academy in the country's innovation hub Shenzhen.