Green cards decision to bear fruit for foreigners

Gao said: "In the United States, the founders of many great innovative companies are not US natives - the government created a talent system to bring them in. What we should do now is also build a well-established system to attract top talent from across the globe."

The newly published document includes a guideline for foreigners holding permanent residents' permits to be given equal treatment as Chinese citizens, such as on buying homes, school enrollment and in social security coverage.

Eugene Gregoryanz, a physicist from the University of Edinburgh who now works at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Heifei Institutes of Physical Science under the 1,000 Talent Plan, said, "I think that if foreigners are allowed to buy property or exchange renminbi at banks like Chinese citizens, this would be very attractive and rather useful."

The 1,000 Talent Plan, also known as the Recruitment Program for Global Experts, is a global talent program initiated by the Chinese government to attract foreign scientists or innovators.

The program has recruited 313 foreign experts since it was launched in 2011.

It offers a subsidy of 1 million yuan ($153,400) for each recruit along with research funds, a salary and other benefits.

Recruits must work in China for at least three years and remain in the country for at least nine months a year.

Gregoryanz said, "For many people I know, exchanging money is a big problem. We are paid extremely well but cannot exchange (large amounts of) renminbi to dollars or sterling at banks. We have to make do with the airport, where the exchange rates are not so good, or ask Chinese friends to do it for us.