BEIJING, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- China next year is to introduce 30,000 overseas specialists that the country is most in need of but also is in great shortage, according to the Ministry of Personnel.

    "The government is to fund the introduction of 10,000 economic and technical specialists and 20,000 educational, health and scientific specialists in 2007," said Minister of Personnel Zhang Bolin.

    Zhang said China should further explore international intelligence resources which has provided strong support to the country's overall development.

    China has recruited a total of 400,000 specialists from overseas, Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan, and has dispatched nearly 40,000 qualified personnel to study overseas.

    The Chinese government will fund 10,000 Chinese talents to go and study overseas in 2007, Zhang said.

    He calls for more preferential policies for returning students from overseas study so as to draw more Chinese students back to the motherland.

    Since 1978, more than 400,000 Chinese students have studied abroad, with more than 100,000 returning to the country over the last two decades.

    Official statistics show that government scholarships have allowed 26,658 Chinese to go and study overseas since 1996, and 97 percent of them returned to China after completing study.

    Most students go to top notch universities and research institutes in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Australia and Canada.