China aims to become top hub for IT outsourcing

DALIAN: In a tough competition to India, China today made a strong push to establish itself as a top global information technology outsourcing hub and vowed to remove policy-related hurdles in this sector.

People's Republic of China has several advantages like low labour cost, vast skilled manpower and world-class telecom infrastructure to emerge as a preferred destination for IT outsourcing, said Assistant Minister of Commerce Wang Chao here.

The country is looking to tap markets like IT services, BPO and data processing in developing as well as developed nations, he said.

The Minister was speaking at the China International Software and Information Service Forum and Entrepreneurs Summit 2008 here in Northeast China.

Some of the world's top companies like SAP, Ericsson, Cisco and representatives from neighbouring countries like Japan and South Korea took part in the summit.

"In 2007, software export from mainland China was to the tune of USD 930 million, most of them to Japan, Hong Kong and the US," Wang said.

Beijing and Shanghai received FDIs to the tune of USD 2 billion in the IT/BPO sector in 2007, he said.

The Chinese government was providing sops like tax benefits and subsidies to attract companies from abroad, the Minister said.

"We are focusing on alliances, adequate training and enhancing competitiveness to move ahead in our goal to become a major hot-spot for outsourcing," Wang said.