Sixty students with prestigious Nankai University of Tianjin municipality, north China, have acquired certificates to practice in auction and pawn businesses, the first in the country to "graduate" in the field after three years of academic study, according to a source with university authorities Tuesday.
Previously, all auctioneers in China received just short-term technical training, which posed a hidden barrier to the long-term growth of auction business, said Yao Guanghai, deputy director and secretary-general of the Chinese Auction and Pawn Association.
Of the graduates, only eight will go on pursuing their bachelor degrees and 49 others have signed employment contracts with auction companies across the country.
Intermediary services that have burgeoned in China since the launch of the country's opening-up and reform in the late 1970s, pawn brokerages and auction firms employ more than 40,000 people, of whom, only 3,000 are registered auctioneers.
To help raise the proficiencies of Chinese auctioneers on a general basis, remarkable progress is to be expected as the country's annual training capacity for auctioneers is merely 4,000 to 5,000 people, Yang said.
(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2003)
