China's policy to protect the China-made software will not change. In order to boost the development of software industry, China has made a series of policies including "Compendium for reviving the software industry", in which government's purchase of China-made software is particularly stressed as a way to support the industry. Government will give priority to China-made software on conditions that they have same quality with foreign products.

To further implement the compendium, under the leadership of the National Information Standards Organization, the related government departments and the China's software companies began to draft a Guide for standardization of electronic government affairs and standards of e-government affairs in Aug. 2003, which will help to define China-made software and non China-made software, and make clear the proportion of China-made software in the total amount of government purchase.

According to Deng Shoupeng, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, the value of the electronic government affairs market in China is between 180 bln yuan to 200 bln yuan. About 80 percent of government departments in China has realized office information, 60 percent of the 300 million government employees have been equipped with related information products. In this case, the government will spend 100 bln yuan to purchase hardware and software. The money spent on software will amount to 25 bln yuan if ration between hardware and software is 4:1.

According to Ni Guangnan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who has been participating in drafting of the guide, China will not abandon protection of its own software in the field of government purchase even though it has joined the WTO.

China's regulations regarding purchase, particularly the regulation that governments must purchase China-made software conform to the WTO framework agreements. He thinks the Chinese government ought to put more efforts into support to the software industry. "In 2002 the government spent 4 bln yuan in software purchase, only representing 14. 1 percent of the total amount spent in software in the Chinese market. While some countries' government purchase takes 1/3 of the total value. So the government purchase of software will increase greatly in the future."

The market of software for e-government affairs will grow by 33.9 percent annually, predicts the CCID Consulting. By the end of 2004, the government will likely to spend more than 2 bln yuan in software purchase. It will be a great support to China's software industry provided part of the huge amount is spent on China-made software.

Government purchase is of vital importance to the development of China-made software, for there is a great gap between China's software industry and that of India and Ireland, not to mention America, Europe and Japan, says Wang Feng, Vice President of Jinshan Software Co., Ltd, a major office software developer in China.

Compared with foreign counterparts, China's software industry is inferior in terms of capital and technology, therefore government's supports is of paramount importance to the industry, says Hu Caiyong, President of Chinese 2000, a Chinese operating system company.

By People's Daily Online