New Delhi, Aug 24: In a possible threat to India's prowess in the Information Technology field, China is fast rising as a service outsourcing hub and could catch up with India by 2007, according to Business Week.
"Gartner Inc predicts by 2007, China will pull in 27 billion dollar for IT services including Call Centres and back-office work, matching India", it said in its recent issue.
Connectitchina, a Shanghai-based consultancy has estimated that China's software outsourcing revenue would more than double to five billion dollars by 2005.

China is joining English-speaking countries like India and Philippines as key destination for outsourced service jobs, Business Week said.
"So far China is focussed on providing back-office support for financial service, telecom software and retail companies in neighbouring Asian countries where operators can easily talk in Japanese and Korean languages. But it is making inroads as an outsource base for English speaking nations", it said.



China's low cost talent is another edge, it says adding although India is a powerhouse in high-end IT services, late comers these days must pay higher wages for experienced engineers.



In this context, the magazine gave the example of Bearingpoint, formerly KPMG Consulting, which opened a software development centre in Shanghai and quoted its Greater China president Bryan Huang saying "Bearingpoint pays 500 dollar a month for engineers in Shanghai. In India, the pay would be 700 dollar and in US it would be 4000 dollars.


Bureau Report