Support offered to help service sector expand

As the industry boomed in 2013, Chinese contractors took $62.34 billion through international service outsourcing activities, up 42.2 percent year-on-year, Ministry of Commerce data showed.

Employment in the sector rose by 1 million to 5.36 million in 2013, with 24,818 companies engaged in the business, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

The figures probably involved some double-counting, said Qu, but the industry "still achieved a steady growth curve under incentives".

Shen Danyang, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce, said this week that in the first two months of 2014, information technology outsourcing accounted for almost 60 percent of offshore outsourcing, underscoring its dominant industrial status.

Although the government is supporting offshore IT services, Qu said: "We won't abandon offshore IT outsourcing, but the industry should focus more on 'onshore outsourcing' in the future.

"It seems likely that IT services will be likely some day to blend into traditional industries and then the concept of 'outsourcing' will fade away."

Tang Zhenming, executive director of IT outsourcing firm ChinaSoft International Ltd, agreed. Tang said that with the emergence of new technologies, a crossover between the service industry and traditional industries will occur.

In terms of developing offshore outsourcing, Qu said China's top advantage is that companies in the nation can adapt advanced service models and concepts used overseas.

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