BEIJING - An estimated 1.3 million young Chinese will compete for 18,000 civil servant posts in central government departments and their local branches on Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday afternoon, exams of extra skills will be held for applicants competing for posts with foreign language requirements and those for posts of the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

On Sunday, all applicants will take the general exam.

Among them, about 88,000 applicants are from Beijing, said a report from Saturday's Beijing Times.

The city has adopted various measures to prevent cheating in the exams. For the first time, device have been installed in the examination sites to block cell phone signals so that applicants can not use cell phones for cheating, the newspaper said.

In addition, vans carrying monitoring device for wireless signals will patrol around the sites to detect suspicious signals, the report said.

According to a statement from the State Administration of Civil Service late last month, the number of qualified applicants for the exam has declined for two consecutive years.

In 2010, China had 1.41 million qualified applicants, 30,000 less than the number of 2009.

A major reason for the reduction was that the government has set more detailed requirements for different posts and the candidates have to be more specific in applying, the statement said.

Moreover, China has made grassroots work experience a requirement for civil service hopefuls eyeing central- and provincial-level posts this year. That means most of these posts will no longer be open to new college graduates.

According to the administration, the number of this year's qualified applicants for central- and provincial-level posts declined by 19 percent from last year.