[photopress:Lou_Qinjian.jpg,full,alignright]Lou Qinjian, vice minister of the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) and seen in our illustration, has said China’s software firms should focus on making breakthroughs in key products such as operating systems, database management systems, and intermediate software.
He said the nation’s software industry lags far behind its overseas equivalents in research and development and its combined sales accounts for only 6% of the world total.
Sales of China’s software industry totaled RMB480 billion ($62.9 billion) in 2006, and exports accounted for $6 billion. Lou Qinjian said software industry sales have grown at more than 40% annually in recent years.
China has about 13,000 software developers, of which 35 have an annual sales of more than RMB1 billion ($131.1 million.)
Sales are planned to reach almost RMB1.1 trillion ($144.2 billion) in 2010, according to the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Software Industry Development (2006-2010) released by the ministry in May.
Wang Bingke, deputy director of the ministry’s Department of Economic Restructuring and Operations, earlier said the MII would encourage software firms to cooperate and form innovative unions to build an ‘innovative, China-made technological system’.
Source: Jongo News