Beijing's software industry saw rapid progress last year on the support of the municipal government and successful Sino-foreign cooperations.

Yu Cisheng, deputy director with the Beijing Science and Technology Committee, said that the municipal government's efforts to strengthen intellectual property rights protection, develop preferential policies for software enterprises and to promote self-development and the introduction of related technologies have been a success.

"The next step for Beijing's software industry is to encourage consolidation and cooperation, which will bring into being more large-scale operators and increase the amount of capital available for technological research and development," Yu added.

Experts predicted that the city's software sector will maintain a growth rate of from 30 percent to 50 percent over the next few years, and that sales revenue this year is expected to reach 33 billion yuan (US$3.98 billion).

Official statistics show that sales revenues of the capital city's software industry, up 31 percent from 2000 figures, amounted to 24.9 billion yuan (US$3 billion) last year, with sales revenues for software manufacturing reaching 7.2 billion yuan (US$867 million) and 17.7 billion yuan (US$2.13 billion) for related services.

Sources from the Beijing Administration of Customs revealed that the city's software exports totalled US$69 million last year, 47 percent more than 2000.

"A group of powerful software enterprises have been established in Beijing, with the annual sales volume of 11 of them exceeding 100 million yuan (US$12 million) last year," Yu said.

So far, Sino-foreign cooperation has been a trend in the software industry, making best use of each side's own advantages in technology, skilled personnel or management expertise.

(China Daily March 8, 2002)