45,000 engineers gather in Auto Valley

A talent apartment offered by the Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone. [Photo provided to en.whkfq.gov.cn]

The Wuhan Economic & Technological Development Zone (WEDZ) in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei province, has gathered nearly 200,000 technicians and high-level personnel, including over 2,000 PhD graduates, and 45,000 engineers.

The world's automobile industry is staging a revolution featuring electrification, intelligentization and connectivity, and professional talents that possess innovative capabilities are the key to remaining competitive.

WEDZ has implemented innovation and talent-driven development strategies in order to attract and retain talents. It has rolled out 33 policies for sci-tech innovation, eight policies for the protection of intellectual property rights, and 10 golden rules for talent cultivation.

According to Wu Shuang, human resource manager of VOYAH, which is based in the zone, about 37 percent of its workforce is engineers. Over the last three years, 23 of the company's talents have won the "Auto Valley Talent" title. Their job positions included senior executives, technical directors, front-line engineers and technicians.

So far, WEDZ has attracted 652 outstanding engineering talents, all of whom have received a combined total of 300 million yuan ($41.79 million) in funds.

The Geely Automobile Industrial College was set up in October 2022 in WEDZ, jointly established by Geely Auto Group and Hubei Land Resources Vocational College. The two sides pledged to deepen cooperation, promote industry-education integration, and cultivate high-level automobile personnel.

On July 1, 2023, the Hubei Outstanding Engineer Practice Base was unveiled in the zone, focusing on new energy and intelligent connected vehicles. It carries out professional training programs and international exchanges to achieve engineering practice resource sharing.