Cai Hongbin, dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, calls for more efforts to be made to attract talented personnel to West China during the 2016 Southwest China Forum of the Guanghua School of Management on May 22, 2016. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/chinadaily.com.cn]

West China has to pay more attention to attracting talented personnel instead of eyeing outside investment only, a prominent Chinese economist said.

Education and talented personnel are of vital importance to regional development. While the country has to invest more in education in West China, the latter has to put more emphasis on attracting new talent, Cai Hongbin said.

Cai, an economics professor and dean of the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, made the remarks during the 2016 Southwest China Forum of the Guanghua School of Management on Sunday.

Held in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, the forum drew top-notch Chinese economists, well-known corporate executives and government officials to compare notes on development opportunities in Southwest China.

A man takes a photo of a screen displaying the main points of a speech by Zhang Laiwu, former vice minister of science and technology, at the 2016 Southwest China Forum of the Guanghua School of Management on May 22, 2016. Nearly 500 managers from enterprises and institutions in Sichuan attended the forum. [Photo by Huang Zhiling/chinadaily.com.cn]

Nearly 500 managers from enterprises and institutions in Sichuan attended the forum.

The background for holding the forum in Chengdu is that China's central government decided earlier this year to build the Chengdu-Chongqing city cluster as a new economic power engine in the country, according to Teng Fei, deputy Party chief of the Guanghua School of Management.

The central government's decision to foster the cluster with 40 million urban residents based around Chengdu and Chongqing, a municipality directly under the central government, is expected to create a new growth engine for the Chinese economy.

Chongqing, which borders Sichuan, and Chengdu are the two largest business cities in Southwest China.