Change due in R&D sectors of civil service

An employee wearing a protective mask is seen through windows while working inside a laboratory at the research and development department of Tiens Group in Tianjin, China on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016. Tiens is a direct sales firm specializing in health and beauty products. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

A FORMER secretary-general of the Finance Ministry recently wrote about the country’s burgeoning civil servants to population ratio.

It is the highest in the Asia-Pacific with 1.6 million people or 11% of the country’s labour force.