Industrial upgrade calls for support

The lack of high-end talents is one of the reasons behind China's difficult industrial upgrading, experts attending a forum in Beijing said on June 16.

Chinese companies have earned some money by manufacturing and exporting products in the past 30 years, but as labor costs are getting higher and higher and managing a manufacturing company is getting increasingly difficult, entrepreneurs engaging in the real economy turn to speculation, such as investing in garlic or sugar canes, Zhang Zhixue, vice dean of Guanghua School of Management, Peking University said.

People with a high Intelligent Quotient（IQ) may create added-value or create a brand, but this, although important for industrial upgrade, can be very hard when the finance industry attracts the most talented people, said Wang Pu, founder of Alliance PKU Management Consultants Ltd, China's first local consulting firm.

Wang said that it is relatively easier for average employees or executives to earn money in China's finance industry as this industry is less open, compared with the manufacturing industry. This fact, coupled with media reports about extraordinarily-high pay for executives in investment banks such as Morgan Stanley, accounts for talents flowing into the finance industry.

Wang said there should be some restrictions for the finance industry and media so that talents can flow back to the real economy.