Two mascots for the Ningbo Talent Day are seen in the city in East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/WeChat account: nbfb0574]

Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang province will kick off a series of recruitment activities with the arrival of the city's annual Talent Day, which falls on April 20 this year.

In 2019, the city designated the first day of Grain Rain, a solar term in the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, as Talent Day. The move was meant to attract talents from around the world to work or start businesses in Ningbo.

This year's edition will primarily focus on the recruitment of college graduates. The city will stage job fairs in about 100 universities across the nation starting from April 20.

In addition, Ningbo will strengthen cooperation in talent cultivation with cities including Zhoushan, Taizhou, Lishui in Zhejiang as well as Bengbu in Anhui province.

Ningbo has made significant progress in expanding its talent pool in recent years.

A report released by online recruitment platform Zhaopin in June 2021 ranked Ningbo eighth among Chinese cites in terms of attractiveness to talents.

In 2020, the city attracted 166,000 college graduates, a year-on-year growth of 20.3 percent. More than 10,000 of these graduates held a master's degree or above. The number of overseas students also saw a year-on-year uptick of 24.7 percent.