Northeast China's Liaoning Province reported a rapid growth in its software industry in 2005, with both industry scale expanding and export volume surging.

In 2005, the industry generated US$153 million in export revenue, up 120 percent year on year.

Thanks to Liaoning's acceleration of IT application and the provincial government's preferential policies for software industry, dozens of software research center and related enterprises have been set up in the provincial capital Shenyang and port city of Dalian over recent years.

The 130 export-oriented software firms in Shenyang and Dalian earned US$55.89 million and US$97.25 million respectively last year, a rise of 84.6 percent and 260 percent over 2004.

The province has so far exported its application and system software products to 13 countries and regions, among which Japan is the largest overseas market.

Last year, Liaoning's revenue from its software export to Japan reported US$143 million , making up 93.5 percent of the total, and the province's software export value to the United States reached US$6.18 million, or 5.3 fold the figure for 2004.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2006)