The "CHINAOCS 2012 Dandong Tour" for overseas Chinese students took place at the Crowne Plaza, Dandong, Liaoning province, on June 30, with 35 highly educated Chinese studying abroad taking part, along with Li Shumin, deputy-secretary of the Municipal Party, and other municipal leaders.

The "Dandong Tour", which is a policy promotion and forum event, chose Dandong because it is "a place where you can start your career", according to the theme.

It started in 2011 and proved a success by attracting several dozen overseas students to Dandong, to get them to take a look and engage in exchanges in the hope that they would start their careers in Dandong.

This year, the "Dandong Tour" also drew back 35 Chinese students from various countries such as Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, the United States, and Japan, 20 of them with PhDs and 14 with master's or double master's. Their majors range from biopharmacology to mechatronics, industrial engineering, and materials science to computer science and the law.

That afternoon, there was a special job forum for overseas students and a project-matching meeting in the Dandong Employment Market, where 36 companies or units were able to talk directly with the students. This led to the signing of 24 intents to cooperate, six of them in logistics, legal services and automobile parts.

Edited by Zhao Qian and Roger Bradshaw