Authorities in China are now considering an expansion of the country’s "green card" program to attract more skilled and talented foreigners to live in the country permanently.

The move has been long and keenly awaited, as China is fast becoming a destination country for transnational migrants rather than merely a source of them.

China has offered permanent residence permits or "green cards" to overseas professionals since 2003.

But despite the mounting demand for the permits, they remain in scant supply.

The national census in late 2010 indicated that there was a formidable presence of more than 1 million people from outside living in the Chinese mainland. That included nearly 600,000 foreigners.

But only about 4,700 foreigners had actually been granted permanent residence permits.

Wang Huiyao, Director General of the Center for China and Globalization, says it was almost a moment for celebration when such permits were issued at all.

"It wasn’t even close to relaxing the controls on immigration. The green cards at that time were only meant for those who had lived in China and made considerable contributions to China. It came almost as an acknowledgement of those exclusive few."

Professor Dabra Howard, an Australian who works as a faculty advisor at Xidian University in Xi’an explains what it meant not to be among the chosen few.

"I have been in China for just over eight years. I need to have my visa renewed. I have to ask my work fellows to help me do that. Every two years, I have to have a medical examination to prove that I am still healthy. And then my workplace takes me to the visa renewal office, and then I have to hand over my passport for a week, and then the passport comes back."

Howard says such hassles are common for all the expats she knows, who cannot settle in China permanently because they are not wealthy, lack unique skills or simply cannot find a potential marriage partner.

Director Wang says people like Ms. Howard should be given priority consideration when it comes to the green card program as they help industries and sectors in China and are already well established here.

But to help the talented foreigners who haven’t been in China and now want to permanently settle in the country, more work needs to be done.

"How we evaluate talented foreigners, how we settle them, and how well we know about where they are needed??that’s not what public security should be tasked with. We will not be short of talented foreigners coming in. The problem is how we settle them."

As a start, that may amount to establishing a new well-coordinated and consistent government agency, to facilitate the inflow of talented foreigners as well as manage them.

From: http://www.china.org.cn/china/2012-04/30/content_25272024.htm