Beside the Yongjiang River, opportunities surge forward. Following the opening of the Pinglu Canal to navigation, Nanning has achieved a historic leap from an inland city to a river-sea hub, with 5,000-tonne ocean-going vessels able to sail directly from Nanning to ASEAN, continuously expanding the city's development space for "going to sea," "chasing the sea," and "braving the sea."
On September 23, the 2026 Nanning-ASEAN Talent Exchange Activity Month opened in Nanning. Nearly 200 guests, including finalist representatives from the 9th China Nanning Overseas Talent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, representatives from the Nanning High-Level Talent Service Alliance, and representatives from ASEAN countries, gathered in the city to discuss cooperation and pursue shared development. With the theme "Embrace Talent, Nanning Has a Future," this year's activity month covered multiple application scenarios, diverse event formats, and multi-dimensional cooperation areas, building a solid platform and providing strong support for talent exchange, supply-demand matching, and achievement transformation at home and abroad.
Building a Bridge to Connect Hearts and Facilitate Cooperation
One day before the opening ceremony, the 2026 Symposium for Outstanding Guangxi-Native Talents Working Outside the Region was held first. Eleven representatives of outstanding Guangxi-native talents working elsewhere, including Long Guilu, a professor in the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University, offered suggestions on industrial development and deepened external cooperation for Guangxi and Nanning in key fields such as artificial intelligence, information technology, biomedicine, and new energy.
"We can create a cross-border application demonstration scenario for quantum direct communication in Nanning, building a security barrier for cross-border settlement." "Visiting the Pinglu Canal exhibition hall and the Nan A Center on site and seeing a large number of artificial intelligence projects land and take effect made me feel immensely proud." "I hope to bring spectral detection technology to Guangxi and promote non-invasive disease testing methods, freeing people from the hassle of blood tests." These earnest suggestions reflected professional dedication and deep affection for their hometown.
Shi Peixin, Chairman of Beijing Jiyun Dingcheng Technology Co., Ltd., once studied in Guangxi and has always followed his hometown's development. "Nanning has introduced generous policies and built high-quality platforms, with an excellent talent cultivation environment and abundant sincerity in attracting talent," Shi Peixin said. In recent years, Nanning has focused on artificial intelligence as its main direction, continuously promoting deep integration of AI with various industries, showing strong industrial development momentum and broad prospects.
Though away from home, their hearts remain with Guangxi's development. Long Guilu and several other experts and scholars working outside the region return home regularly to exchange ideas, spread cutting-edge concepts, and empower local development. Xie Yuansheng, a professor at the PLA General Hospital, led the establishment of the Guangxi Huikang Talent Development Research Institute, linking with medical institutions in the region to promote coordinated development of clinical diagnosis, treatment, and scientific research innovation in nephrology between Beijing and Guangxi. Whether returning home full-time to take root and develop or empowering construction remotely, Guangxi-native talents working outside the region care deeply about their homeland and support its development.
"We are committed to building a bridge for talent exchange, maintaining close contact and connection between talents working outside the region and their hometown," said a relevant official from the Organization Department of the Nanning Municipal Party Committee. This bridge is not only an emotional bond connecting hometown ties but also a development interface for talent returning home, projects landing, and industrial cooperation. In recent years, Nanning has regularly carried out symposiums and field visits for Guangxi-native talents working outside the region, established dedicated talent service specialist teams, and provided "one-on-one" precise services to efficiently promote the landing of quality projects. The previous five return-home exchange activities cumulatively invited 53 outstanding Guangxi-native talents from home and abroad to Nanning for matching, facilitating more than 50 cooperation agreements and cooperation intentions.
Paving a Road with Policy Support and Fertile Ground for Business
Qin Wensheng, Director and General Manager of Guangxi Weishufang Technology Co., Ltd., and his team focused on the pain points of public reading services in schools and communities, developing digital cultural service solutions adapted to both the domestic and ASEAN markets. In 2025, Qin Wensheng registered and established Weishufang Company in Nanning. Leveraging Nanning's unique geographical advantage of facing ASEAN, the company has deeply cultivated the ASEAN digital services market and has now grown into an emerging force in the regional digital reading and digital education sectors.
"Nanning is adjacent to ASEAN with a unique geographical advantage, complete industrial platforms, and considerate government services. It is a quality hotbed for entrepreneurship," Qin Wensheng said. For talent to move from "heartfelt yearning" to "taking root and taking action," comprehensive policy guarantees and a high-quality development environment are indispensable. Nanning continues to optimize its talent development ecosystem, paving a smooth road for all types of talent to settle down, develop businesses, and achieve success.
Policy guarantees are precise and powerful. Nanning fully implements the talent work arrangements of the central government and the autonomous region, rolling out a series of talent policies including "23 Measures for College and Vocational Graduates" and "23 Measures for Talent in the New Era," providing all-round attraction, cultivation, service, and support for all types of talent. Project support continues to increase. The "Yongjiang Plan" has been continuously optimized and upgraded, allowing talent to either jointly apply for project support with local enterprises or independently establish enterprises and apply as the enterprise entity. Based on review results, they can receive tiered support funds ranging from 150,000 yuan to 10 million yuan. Life services are warm and thoughtful. On September 23, the "Nanning High-Level Talent Diversified Life Service List (2026)" was officially released, covering 15 categories and 40 service items including scenic area visits, hotel and dining, culture and arts, and medical care.
"Mental health services are one of the seven new services added to this list," introduced Zhang Chunlin, President of the Nanning Social Welfare Hospital. The hospital has specially customized mental health support services for high-level talent, waiving outpatient consultation fees and providing one free psychological assessment and one free psychological counseling session per year for talent. Since the release of the first service list in 2024, 1.17 million person-times in the city have enjoyed exclusive convenience services for talent such as metro, bus, scenic areas, and parks. Next, Nanning will continue to iteratively upgrade its full-cycle talent service system, earnestly handle the "key small matters" for talent, and deliver solid and meticulous warm service guarantees.
Fulfilling a Shared Dream by Seizing Opportunities of the Times and Building Green City Nanning Together
Nanning has a permanent resident population of approximately 9.02 million. It is a vibrant city with net population inflow, a youth-friendly city, and one of the few provincial capitals in the country to have won both the "UN Habitat Award" and the "National Ecological Garden City" honors. In the green city of Yongcheng, innovation surges and vitality bursts forth. In recent years, Nanning has deeply advanced industrial revitalization, focusing on building four trillion-yuan-level industrial clusters in new energy, artificial intelligence and next-generation information technology, deep processing of non-ferrous metals, and food processing, continuously attracting leading enterprises and upstream and downstream supporting enterprises to gather and land.
At present, the city has 63 national-level innovation and entrepreneurship platforms and 540 autonomous-region-level platforms; the number of high-tech enterprises has reached 1,536, accounting for 41% of the region's total, with total R&D expenditure and incremental growth both ranking first in the region, providing a solid foundation for innovative development. At this year's Overseas Talent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, Yang Huanping's team's "ViKANG99 Food-Grade Recycled Antibacterial New Material" project achieved excellent results.
"Our company is from Singapore. This is our first time in Nanning, and we truly felt the inclusive and livable atmosphere of this city," Yang Huanping said. The team plans to expand into the Chinese market and will prioritize Nanning as a city for landing and layout. The Overseas Talent Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition is a vivid microcosm of Nanning's efforts to gather talent, attract intelligence, and empower industry. Since 2009, Nanning has held the Nanning-ASEAN Talent Exchange Activity Month series for 18 consecutive years, attracting nearly 1.92 million person-times of various types of talent both online and offline; 64 outstanding Guangxi-native talents working outside the region and 665 overseas high-level talents have brought quality projects to Nanning for matching, facilitating a large number of talents, technologies, and projects to land, transform, and bear fruit.
"We will continue to improve and solidify talent exchange activities, closely align with the city's key industrial development needs, build a normalized platform for talent matching at home and abroad, and establish a long-term mechanism for attracting and gathering talent through emotional appeal, competition-based selection, and conference-driven recruitment, gathering more high-level talent and quality innovation teams for Nanning's high-quality development," said Yang Zihan, head of the Second Talent Section of the Organization Department of the Nanning Municipal Party Committee. Nanning warmly welcomes all types of talent from home and abroad to take root in the city, innovate and start businesses, and pursue their dreams.