December 20 marks the 15th anniversary of Macao’s return to China. In the past 15 years, this city has developed fast, and succeeded in attracting more and more skilled professionals to the city. CCTV America’s Zhu Dan reported this story from Macao, China.

According to regional officials, 453 professionals were approved to work in Macao in 2013, an increase of 71 prefessionals from the previous year. The number is growing, in part, due to the city’s Talents Development Committee which has launched an initiative called: Talent Cultivation, Future Creation.

A career opportunity brought Chong Hongheng, a physician at University Hospital of Macao, from the Chinese mainland to Macao eight years ago. Prior to that, he was a doctor for 10 years in a hospital in south China’s Guangdong province.

“Eight years ago, I realized that Macao was developing fast, and that there was huge potential in various fields. They needed more medical staff, so I decided to come here,” Chong said.

Working in a public hospital for five years, he found the city short of medical expertise, so he opened his own clinic, hiring medical staff from the Chinese mainland.

Now, a third of his employees are from the mainland. His friend Cui Fengdong also gave up his job at a Shanghai hospital to relocate to Macao over a year ago. Cui is now a surgeon in a Macao’s Kiang Wu Hospital.

“The hospital has treated me very well, and I enjoy working here,” Cui said.

Macao’s Talents Development Committee hopes that with the influx of more professionals, young Macanese people will learn from them and broaden their horizons, Chio Fai, the secretary-general of committee, said.

Additional professionals does have its consequences. With an estimated population of 624,000 people living in an area of 30.3 square kilometers, or nearly 12 square miles, Macao is one of the most densely-populated regions in the world.

“Originally people here speak Cantonese, Portuguese, but now more and more people speak Chinese Mandarin, with many talents coming from the Chinese mainland… it’s daily life,” Larry So, associate professor for social work at Macao Polytechnic Institute said.