China's software firms should focus on making breakthroughs in
key products such as operating systems, database management
systems, and intermediate software, a senior official with the
Ministry of Information Industry (MII) said Thursday.
Lou Qinjian, vice minister of MII, said the nation's software
industry lags far behind its overseas peers in research and
development and its combined sales accounts for only six percent of
the world total.
Sales of China's software industry totaled 480 billion yuan
(US$62.9 billion) in 2006, and exports accounted for US$6 billion,
said Lou at the opening ceremony of a software exhibition.
He noted software industry sales have grown at more than 40
percent annually in recent years.
China has about 13,000 software developers, of which 35 have an
annual sales of more than one billion yuan (US$131.1 million),
according to official statistics.
Sales of the nation's software industry are expected to reach
almost 1.1 trillion yuan (US$144.2 billion) in 2010, according to
the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Software Industry Development
(2006-10) released by the ministry in May.
China will by 2010 have 10 to 15 major software firms that each
have annual sales of 10 billion yuan, according to the plan.
Wang Bingke, deputy director of the ministry's Department of
Economic Restructuring and Operations, said earlier the MII would
encourage software firms to cooperate and form innovative unions to
build an "innovative, China-made technological system".
(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2007)