HAIKOU, October 13. /TASS/. The Hainan authorities have reduced the time it takes to process work and residence permits for foreign specialists from 30 to 10 working days, reported the local information portal "Hainan Ziyu Maoigan" on WeChat.
The island's authorities decided to comprehensively simplify the employment procedure for foreign highly skilled workers in order to promote the liberalization of the regional economy and the construction of Hainan's free trade port. For example, earlier, foreign specialists had to provide the provincial administrative bodies with 22 types of materials and fill in 93 fields with information in the documents, now their number has decreased to 18 and 73, respectively.
In addition, in the past, citizens of other countries planning to relocate to this Chinese province for work had to apply separately for employment and registration to two different departments: the Foreign Specialists Bureau and the Migration Department. Now a package of documents can be submitted at a time via the integrated system through an employer in all major cities and industrial parks on Hainan. The information about a new employee is uploaded to an online platform, and the relevant departments can get everything they need.
More than 10,000 foreign specialists currently live on Hainan, according to official figures. They work in education, tourism, transport, business services, science and technology, culture and other fields, and contribute greatly to the construction and development of Hainan's free trade port.
Over the recent years, the Hainan authorities have been pursuing a targeted policy of attracting valuable personnel. Thus, for example, a preferential income tax with the maximum rate of 15% is established for this category of employees. Moreover, the Hainan authorities provide a temporary residence permit for up to five years or a residence permit for foreign professionals and their family members.