TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Nearly 73 percent of Taiwan's young men and women who graduated from universities or colleges this summer would not mind crossing the Taiwan Strait to work in China, the 1111 job bank quoted the results of a recent poll as indicating yesterday. Graduates who majored in business management, finance and economics topped the list of China bound aspirants, the poll found.

Shanghai is the top choice in terms of location, with 73.08 percent of the new graduates who responded to the poll saying they would prefer to work there, followed by Hong Kong (46.15 percent), Beijing (42.79percent), Guangzhou (21.15 percent) and Suzhou-Hangzhou (20.19 percent), according to the poll.

Work in the information technology sector is the most coveted job of the respondents, followed by trade and goods and services distribution (30.29 percent), and industrial and business services (23.08 percent), the results show.

Some 63.46 percent of the respondents cited China "promising to become the world's leading market" as the major reason for their willingness to work there, while 62.5 percent said they want to work in China to expand their experience and 44.23 percent said working in China would help broaden their global perspective, according to the poll.

A total of 80.29 percent of the first-time job seekers who do not mind working in China said they expect a higher salary working in China than they could earn in Taiwan, at roughly NT$43,600 (S$1,879.16) per month, according to the poll.

The 1111 job bank conducted the survey between June 22 and July 5. It received 1,174 valid samples and had a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 2.86 percentage points. -The China Post/ANN