The processing center would employ 100,000 software engineers and generate a sales value of 20 billion yuan (US$2.42 billion) annually, said Mao Lei, director of the Xi'an Software Park.

China has already built software bases in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Xi'an and Chengdu cities with each having its own unique features.

As a technology-intensive city in western China, Xi'an has 36 universities, three software colleges and 400 software enterprises with a total workforce of 300,000.

The software enterprises in Xi'an generated 2.7 billion yuan (US$326.6 million) in gross domestic product last year, making up 90 percent of Shaanxi' s total GDP from its software industry.

To date, over 30 software enterprises have settled in the Xi'an Software Park. They are cooperating with their counterparts in Japan and Taiwan in new product development.

Wu Jichuan, minister in charge of the information industry, predicted that the sales value of software products in China would top 250 billion yuan (US$ 30.24 billion) by 2005.

(China Daily March 12, 2002)