In recent years, Wuxi attaches great importance to the development of software and information outsourcing industry, and has witnessed a rapid growth in industrial scale.
In 2007, the city's software industry gained a sales volume of 15.2 billion yuan, of which 390 million comes from the software exports and outsourcing. The city has more than 350 software enterprises, including 129 enterprises identified as the provincial level, over 470 registered software products, 18 enterprises holding the CMMI certificate, and nearly 20,000 people being employed. In regard to the information outsourcing industry, it has grown from the scale of only three companies, dozens of employees and millions of sales volume in 2000 to the current scale of more than 30 enterprises, nearly 5,000 people employed and 160 million in sales. The city has attracted Japanese software outsourcing companies joined by well-known companies such as NEC, OBC, NTT-DATE, and the business scale expanded rapidly. Till 2007, the annual outsourcing business volume with Japan reached 120 million yuan. The favorable macro-environment for software and outsourcing services development has primarily been formed. Internationally, the city's industry has wide cooperative relationship with Microsoft, IBM, NIIT and has attracted NEC and other Japanese enterprises to invest in Wuxi; domestically, Wuxi has brought in a group of specialized software Outsourcing business enterprises such as the CAS Institute of Software, Defang of Chinese Academy of Science and Qinghua Ziguang.
In recent years, the development of software and information outsourcing industry of Wuxi presents three prominent characters: first, the pace of development has accelerated noticeably. The city's revenue from software sales increased from 400 million Yuan in 2000 to 53 billion Yuan in 2005, then 10.3 billion Yuan in 2006 and 15.2 billion Yuan in 2007, achieving 38 times growth in 6 years and three big steps forward across the 3 year. Secondly, the local features are gradually shaped. Featured software category including integrated circuit design, office software, embedded and industrial applications, software for outsourcing and export, digital video and animation software gradually come into being. Thirdly, competitiveness is continuously enhanced. A group of backbone enterprises have been introduced and supported, the ability of independent innovation, product quality and competitiveness of enterprises increase year by year. Every year there will always be a number of software enterprises and software products obtaining various national and provincial awards, so that the brand effect is gradually taking place.
Wuxi's rapid growth of software and information outsourcing can be attributed to the advantageous policys. The municipal party committee and government attach great importance to the development of software and services outsourcing industry, explicitly calling for the establishment of the "three valley and three bases" and monitoring the project as it is an important measure for the city's industrial upgrading and economic restructuring.
First, the government issued the "Advices and several policies on speeding up the development of the software industry", in order to give key support and guidance in terms of encouraging software enterprises to make independent innovation, expand the company scale and strengthen the company, seeking international cooperation, importing and cultivating talents, enhancing quality and process control.
Second, the city government has made a "123" program to accelerate the development of services outsourcing and software export which have dominant advantages nationwide. It is planned that to 2010, the city will have imported and cultivated 100 enterprises in service outsourcing and software export each with more than 2,000 employees and annual export volume of 30 million U.S. dollars. The municipal government will distribute 1.5 billion Yuan to qualified enterprises for them to do research and development projects, talent training and other key aspects.
Third, the city will launch and implement the "530" program, which is to import 30 enterprises promising to become industrial leaders in five years. Since the "530" program plans first implemented two years ago, it has successfully introduced prospects and leaders with promising future totaling 68.
The overall goal of Wuxi software and information outsourcing development is to become a national service outsourcing highland by 2010. By that time, the overall scale of the city's software industry will reach 60 billion Yuan, the scale of software outsourcing industry will be 2 billion U.S. dollars, constructions of more than 4 million square meters will be built to support the software industry, the city will accommodate more than 20 million experts in software and information outsourcing, as well as100 service outsourcing enterprises with sales volume of more than 30 million U.S. dollars. The general layout of the construction will adopt the concept of "One complex with two parks and several sections", forming synchronized development pattern of the city. One complex: Taihu Lake new city area centering on administrative roles, including Wuxi Taihu Lake International Science and Technology Park and Wuxi Taihu Lake Science and Education Industrial Park in new city area. Two Parks: the two software industrial parks jointly built by the province and Wuxi, namely, the Jiangsu Software Outsourcing Park majoring in outsourcing business with Japan and Jiangsu Infrastructure Software Park centering on basic software R & D and high-end software outsourcing. Multi-region: multi-regional development of software outsourcing industry in Jiangyin City, Yixing City and other counties.
The key focus of the development of Wuxi software and information outsourcing industry will be on building an international advanced manufacturing technology centre, speeding up the training of the ability of independent innovation in software industry, and striving to create four dominant product groups of IC design, infrastructure software, animation and digital video software and embedded software, synchronizing the development of software and information outsourcing and seeking out a development path for software and information outsourcing with a distinctive characteristic of Wuxi.
