Central, local govts invest $350m in software

BEIJING - Chinese governments at the central and local levels have invested 2.16 billion yuan ($350 million) in buying original office software over the past three years, the National Copyright Administration (NCA) announced Wednesday.

They have purchased some 3.23 million units of office software since 2010, when China launched an anti-piracy campaign among government agencies that ran until the end of April, according to the NCA.

The inter-ministry anti-piracy work team has recently inspected government agencies in 16 provinces and 14 central government agencies.

By the end of April, 62.15 percent of municipal governments and 32.85 percent of county governments had been examined, and their malpractices of buying pirated software had been corrected, the NCA said.

Also according to the NCA, the campaign should cover all municipal- and county-level governments by the end of this year, and regulations should be mapped out to encourage government agencies to procure original copies of software.