The native of Central China's Hubei province returned to China in 2009 after eight years working in the United States.

Xu Jinlin, an ultraviolet laser expert, left the US to work for Hubei-based Huagong Tech Co Ltd, one of the largest laser equipment manufacturers in China and a company Xu believed in the concept of development.

Soon after Xu returned, Huagong Tech established a company specializing in the research of ultraviolet laser where Xu had already acted as chief engineer.

Xu received 10 million yuan ($1.61 million) from Huagong Tech and 5 million yuan from the State-level Donghu New-tech Development Zone in Wuhan, the provincial capital and well-known as China's optics valley, as a start-up fund for his laser project.

Xu, 55, is one of the seven top-notch overseas talent Huagong Tech has lured as part of the country's 1,000 talent plan, or the Recruitment Program of Global Experts. The plan was initiated in 2008 by the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and ministries including the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The country's highest level of talent recruitment plan aims to attract more than 2,000 top professionals in five to 10 years starting from 2009 to spur innovation and scientific and technological advances.

The plan offers a State relocation package of 1 million yuan in addition to salaries and research funding from the universities and institutes that hire them.

Huagong Tech is the company in Hubei province that has the largest number of talent recruited through the 1,000 talent plan, said Ma Xinqiang, Party chief and a board member of the company, whose controlling shareholder is a State-owned company controlled by Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

The seven high-level personnel of Huagong Tech also include Li Cheng, an expert of optical fiber laser, and Wang Wenlu, an expert of optics telecoms equipment.

Relying on innovation and the high-level talent, Huagong Tech's total assets and sales revenue have increased by 20 times in the past 10 years, according to Ma, a deputy to the National People's Congress, China's national legislature.

Huagong Tech plans to merge small German and American enterprises that focus on research of laser and photoelectric industries in the future to beef up the company's technological innovation, Ma said.

So far, Hubei province has attracted a total of 139 people in the country's 1,000 talent plan, ranking fourth in the country, according to the Organization Department of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee.

Beijing, Jiangsu province and Shanghai are the top three in talent search.

In the eighth batch of 1,000 talent plan, the latest released in Oct 2012, some 25 are from Hubei, in which eight are from the Donghu High-tech Development Zone, according to the Organization Department of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee.

National talent development plans are a key part of China's strategic efforts to transform itself from a labor-intensive economy into a talent-rich one, analysts said.

Xu highly praised the 1,000 talent plan. "China is in dire need of talent, especially high-level, in its economic development and overseas talent can bring a lot of advanced technologies and concepts of development," Xu said.

In a bid to meet China's huge demand for top-notch personnel, the country has launched a host of major programs for recruiting people and experts working in various fields abroad.