Guangzhou city held a ceremony yesterday to bid farewell to the first batch of NCOs recruited directly from the city by the army.

　　According to the stipulation of "the Regulations on the Service of the PLA Soldiers on Active Service", NCOs can be recruited directly from citizens in non-military departments who have special expertise. In order to do this work well and encourage qualified youth to join the army, Guangzhou Municipal Government drew out "Regulations on Preferential Placement of Demobilized NCOs", which stipulated that those who have jobs when they join the army, their jobs and partial salary will be retained; those who have no jobs when they joined the army, the municipal government will take precedence to arrange them to working unit with good economic benefits when they demobilized from the army. This time more than 3,000 young students from Guangdong Posts & Telecom Vocational College, Guangzhou Senior Technical School and Guangzhou Radio Technology School volunteered to join the army.

　　By Yuan Jiancheng and Zhou Chengqiang

　　(October 23, PLA Daily)