BEIJING, July 5 (Reuter) - Only 10 percent of this year's 895,000 college graduates will be assigned to state-sector jobs, a fading relic of the old Stalinist economy, the China Youth Daily said on Wednesday.

Fully 90 percent are having to compete for jobs in China's increasingly diversified socialist market economy, the official newspaper quoted State Education Commission official Wang Lujiang as saying.

Despite Communist Party encouragement for young graduates to work in remote and poorly developed regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang, where their expertise is in short supply, most students are reluctant to respond to such patriotic calls.

Most popular among new graduates are better paid jobs in foreign enterprises and high-flying positions in state-run firms or government departments which carry the possibility of comfortable working conditions and travel abroad.