Three of India's four largest software companies -- Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys Technologies, and Satyam Computer Services, -- have started business in the software park and the third largest Indian software company, WIPO, is negotiating entrance to the park.

"China's software market has a great potential and rosy future, especially in the Yangtze River Delta," said a senior manager of the TCS.

TCS would develop software for finance, securities, insurance and telecommunications with Chinese partners and set up a research institute and laboratory with local universities, he added.

The software park in Pudong, a district of Shanghai, had attracted around 1,000 enterprises with the investment worth of 2.3 billion yuan (US$277 million) from domestic companies and US$210 million from abroad by June this year.

Several large foreign companies have already established themselves here, including US-based Synopsys, Citibank, Microsoft, Sony, Kyocera and Core.

Meanwhile, a number of domestic companies and high-technology research programs have entered the software park, such as the research and data processing center of China UnionPay and the anti-computer virus research center under the country's high and new technology research and development program (program 863).

The city has invested 300 million yuan (US$36.2 million) in expanding the software park by 94,000 square meters. The new area aims to attract leading software companies and promising small and medium-sized firms.

About 58 million yuan (US$7 million) will be spent on an advanced technical service platform in the park, including a wide band network, shared data center and software export service.

The software park is expected to attract 2,000 companies with the total output worth of 13 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion) in 2005.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2002)