Sources from a press conference hosted by Guangzhou Municipal Government held recently announced that Guangzhou has been officially recognized by Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Information Industry and Ministry of Science and Technology as China's 12th major city for service outsourcing.

According to Xiao Zhenyu, Director of Bureau of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of Guangzhou Municipality, Guangzhou has embraced rapid development in services outsourcing, which brought in over USD 5 billion in 2007. "Guangzhou boasts special advantages in location and talent for development of service outsourcing" he said "and these competitive advantages attracted HSBC Bank to locate their global clearing house in the Tianhe District".

Xiao also said that Guangzhou should seize this opportunity to speed up development of service outsourcing, and he suggested aiming at a 30% annual growth Technology Outsourcing services and Business Process Outsourcing services are top targets. Within five years Guangzhou is expected to develop into South China's largest service outsourcing center famous all over the world.

In order to achieve these goals, Guangzhou will formulate options on a plan called "Promoting Service Outsourcing in Guangzhou". Opinions offered suggest that at least RMB 200 million a year shall be invested in service outsourcing development. Too, Guangzhou will host some 30 major outsourcing service enterprises in 2008.