ON CHINA'S FOCUS ON IT OUTSOURCING

HORSE-RACE BEGINS

The LA times has a noteworthy article outlining China's long-term determination to compete vigorously with India in the global market for IT outsourcing:

"In the foothills of Yuelu Mountain here, a young Mao Tse-tung found inspiration in nature for his political aspirations. Today, Communist Party officials have a different vision for this area: a valley of global outsourcing firms...

"Most analysts reckon it'll be perhaps a decade before China catches up. India's IT outsourcing revenue, estimated at $18 billion in 2007, is about six times the size of China's. The gap figures to be even bigger for business-process outsourcing, such as medical billing and back-office work.

With its history as a British colony, India has workers with strong English skills and familiarity with Western culture. That gives companies there a big edge when bidding for jobs that require reading reports and talking to Americans.
But China's sales of IT outsourcing work are growing at roughly twice the rate of India's."

The piece goes onto provide a fair amount of numbers and other specifics, but it's clear that despite the obvious disadvantage on the English front, China is focused top-down on this initiative.

It's  an important trend to track given China's track record to date on achieving it's long-term, top-down goals.

Comments

[Alex Tolley]

All this is predicated on the world staying peaceful. Once China emerges as a global power, her military ambitions will demonstrate the folly of having your key infrastructure and development out of your control.