China and Germany have launched an inter-governmental collaboration in a bid to jointly develop high-end software products.

The Sino-German Joint Software Institute, a new initiative of China's Ministry of Science and Technology and Germany's Federal Ministry of Education and Research (FMER), is the first international high-technology research body co-sponsored by the Chinese government.

David Zhang, director of the institute, said its mission was to study and design software strategies for the Chinese software industry, to develop advanced software for telecommunications technology, and to "incubate" and support software start-ups.

The 30-member research team would focus on operational systems and middleware for a parallel processing next-generation central processing unit, software for mobile communications and multimedia mobile applications, and a common platform for software interface and management, Zhang said.

Zhang said his institute, jointly funded by the two governments, would bid for China's national high-technology projects, or 863 Program, FMER projects, European Union Sixth Framework projects and other projects mandated by the private sector.

Meanwhile, he said, the institute is going to closely cooperate with the well-known Fraunhofer Association, which promotes technological industrialization, and other German research organizations.

(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2003)