This port city in east China's Shandong Province is striving to build itself into a state-level software industrial base in two years, according to Mayor Du Shicheng.

In the city's development plan recently mapped out, the software industry has been listed as one of the city's three major economic pillars in the future.

So far, Qingdao has set up two software industrial parks and several labs focused on software and industrial information, which are believed to have constituted a technological and personnel platform for its software development.

Statistics show that the city's software industry reaped a production value of 300 million yuan (about 36 million US dollars) in 2000, and the figure is expected to reach 600 million to 800 million yuan (about 72 million to 96 million US dollars) this year.

(People?s Daily December 19, 2001)