"Only with a unified software technical standard can we tap the international market and invest in products with Chinese characteristics," Xu said at yesterday's opening of International Software China 2002.

He called on government departments and software vendors to co-operate in the establishment of an industrial standard to improve the compatibility and ensure sharing of data and technological resources.

Steve Balmer, chief executive officer of US software giant Microsoft, agreed that the next waves of innovation after the Internet would hinge on technological standards.

He said Microsoft would seek more Chinese partners in software development based on extensible markup language (XML), a universal software program language.

Microsoft is also expected to launch a "Great Wall" plan to set up software colleges at Chinese universities to train software professionals.

Li Ying, vice-president of the China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID) under the Ministry of Information Industry, said informatization will provide a promising future for the software industry.

She said software will account for 20 per cent to 40 per cent of total spending on construction of information systems and that urban construction and utility management will become hot spots this year.

Chemical, banking, education, manufacturing, government and telecom will be the most active forces in using IT technologies, she said.

According to CCID, China's' software sector saw sales of 28.5 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) last year, rising 23.9 per cent compared with the previous year.

The International Software China 2002, which ends tomorrow, was organized by CCID and the China Software Industrial Association.

(China Daily June 27, 2002)