On January 21 the Guangzhou Foreign Experts Bureau disclosed that, last year, the 4th "Guangzhou Friendship Awards" awarded 14 foreign experts with outstanding contributions and touching stories the "Guangzhou Friendship Award".

The so-called "foreign experts" are actually holders of the honorific title given to foreign professionals and high-level experts invited to China. In recent years, the number of foreign experts working in Guangzhou on short and long-term contracts exceeds 30,000 each year.

The Guangzhou Foreign Experts Bureau is a government department that provides comprehensive services to the foreign professionals working in Guangzhou. The Bureau specializes in promoting the introduction of foreign expertise by local institutions, funding the key projects to introduce foreign professional talents and implementing the permit system allowing the foreign professional talents to work in China.

The 14 foreign experts nominated in 2007 are from the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, France, and Belgium, including CEOs, technical advisors, well-known professors and so on. They all work long hours on their own responsibilities, contribute their ability and wisdom to the economic construction and social development of Guangzhou and commit themselves to the Sino-foreign cultural exchanges over a long period of time.

The "Guangzhou Friendship Award" is an award especially established for the foreign experts working in Guangzhou to honor their contributions in the economic construction and social development in our society. This is the highest honor granted to foreign talent by the government. The appraisal work is organized and carried out by the Guangzhou Foreign Experts Bureau and appraisals have been held in 1996, 2001 and 2004 respectively, granting this laurel to 32 foreign experts in total.