Friday, September 16 2005 19:50 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: China's Jiangsu Province is aggressively wooing Bangalore's famed IT industry to do some kind of handholding and guide the region having an ambition to make a big mark in the sector.

Wang Bintai, Director General of Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education, said here they are looking to invite up to 400 software professionals from India to give a push to information technology education and training.

A Jiangsu economic delegation is currently visiting the city to help understand Bangalore's software success story.

The size of the software biggies of Bangalore gave jitters to some of the delegation members.

One of them asked at a seminar "India-China Software Cooperation: The Bangalore-Jiangsu link", organized by NASSCOM this afternoon:

"There is a big gap between the software companies here and those back home. I am feeling pressurized. What's that we should learn from Bangalore?"

Responded Li Yuanchao, Chairman of the Standing Committee of Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress: "We have to open our eyes, our heart and our hand".

According to Li, the annual revenue of the biggest software company in Jiangsu, an eastern coastal province neighboring Shanghai, is US$ 150 million.

"We want to build companies of the size of Infosys and TCS. That may take five to ten years", he added. Total revenue of China's software industry was US$ 27.7 billion in 2004, he said.

"You (Bangalore) are advanced in software, we want to learn from you", Li said. The large software market in China offers Indian companies good opportunity to tap into.

Chinese students had dislike for a software career some years back. But things are changing and they are learning English from the primary level. He invited Indian teachers to train Chinese young people.

Wang said the province is keen to have from India qualified teaching faculties, software developers, professional certification trainers, and software consultants, among others.

"We are also keen to welcome Indian universities, well-known enterprises, and quality education/training institutes to cooperate with Jiangsu higher education institutions to jointly establish software colleges and software education & training centers, or to provide joint programmes", he said.

Wang added: "We look forward to invite 200-400 overseas software professionals".