Conglomerate to nurture aerospace talent as it strives to dominate field

As China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the country's major space contractor, strives to become a top player in the global space arena, the company's chairman has pledged to strengthen its talent pool to lay a solid foundation for future growth.

Wu Yansheng, chairman of the State-owned space conglomerate, said on Friday that his company will continue to recruit and train more talented professionals, improve its competitiveness and attractiveness in the human resources market, encourage and help employees to develop their skills and capabilities, and allocate more resources to support innovation and creativity in research and development.

"We will uphold and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's thoughts, strategies and instructions on improving human resources work," he said. "We will also enhance our long-term planning for recruitment and training. The goal is building and maintaining a rich talent pool to accelerate our becoming a world-class space enterprise and enable us to better serve the national defense and space exploration cause," he said.

Wu said CASC has been benefiting from its investment in human resources, especially talented young researchers, designers and engineers, as many of them have become leading figures in China's space programs and have made extensive contributions to them.

About 53 percent of the company's more than 78,400 researchers, designers and engineers are age 35 or younger, and nearly half have a master's or doctoral degree, according to statistics from the company.

"We pay great attention to the growth of young professionals," Wu said. "Many young researchers, designers and engineers have been given opportunities to lead teams or important projects. Those with new ideas or who show outstanding performance are promoted to key positions at my company."

He said the company allocates nearly 30 million yuan ($4.7 million) a year and offers other special support to enable young employees to explore new scientific and technological subjects.

At a central work conference on human resources late last month, President Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, called for a greater emphasis to be placed on training talent and for quicker steps to be taken to establish a competitive edge in human resources.

The country's competitive strength, national development and rejuvenation hinge on the fostering of more talented people, he said.