More than 8,000 job opportunities will be on offer at a job fair in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, city authorities said on Thursday.

The job fair, 2012 Ningbo Talent and Technology Week, will be held from Sept 21 to 25 in the port city in East China. About 700 enterprises and institutions from Zhejiang and surrounding regions will take part in the fair.

Professionals in the maritime industry are the most needed in Ningbo, an official from the city's Human Resources and Social Security Bureau said at a news conference in Beijing.

Some 300 Chinese returning from overseas will be invited to discuss the 250 high-tech projects they have come up with at a special fair. There will also be forums for academics and research institutions to announce their new projects and for venture capitals and financial institutions to find investment opportunities.

Ningbo began to hold the annual job fair in 2006. It is aimed at attracting professionals and academics from China and abroad to speed up the city's industrial transformation and development.

Previous fairs introduced more than 4,000 high-end professional, 60 foreign experts and about 290 start-up projects to Ningbo.