Anchor: China is training more qualified software technicians and launching further cooperation with developed countries to help boost China's software industry, seen as one of the future pillar industries among national economy.

CRI's Wei Tong has the details:

Reporter: The software industry has become a primary focus in modern high-technology circles. It has replaced traditional hardware to be widely used in various fields, such as telecommunications, finance and taxation.

In 2004, global software sales totaled more than 880 billion US dollars, soaring 11 percent from 2003.

However, the Chinese software industry lagged behind the developed countries. Last year, it only had a 3 percent global market share, far behind the US, Ireland, Israel and India.

China's vice minister of Commerce Wei Jianguo says the country has made a series of initiatives moving the growing industry forward:

"We will strengthen the training of software specialists, improve skills to create more practical products and encourage more venture capital in software industry. Also, taxes for software producers are likely to be reduced or even exempted."

In addition, China places priority to international cooperation in the process of software development. So far, software manufacturers in western countries have outsourced some business to Chinese enterprises, making use of the low production costs.

Without a doubt, the outsourcing has offered an opportunity for Chinese domestic software makers to improve their research and development levels.

Su Zhixun, general manager of a software company in northeast Dalian city, explains that some local enterprises also cooperate to attract more business from abroad:

"Some top-class software companies in the city have joined hands to form up a big partnership. It provides full access to the every branch company's specialty to do the outsourcing and open channels of business."

In the past five years, China's software industry has seen a sustained growth of 30 percent annually. The industry scale has added up to 23 billion US dollars last year.

Wei Tong, CRI News.