India's top software exporter Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. said on Thursday it would set up a joint venture in China to provide software services to global companies and the local Chinese market. TCS will hold a majority stake in the venture and Microsoft, China's Uniware Co Ltd. two and Chinese software parks will be minority shareholders, the Indian company said.
The joint venture will be located in Beijing's Zhongguancun Software Park and will start operations in early 2006.
"The key objective of this global initiative is to build the new venture as a role model for the growing Chinese software industry," TCS said in a statement.
China, whose exports in software and back-office services total less than a fifth of India's $17.2 billion, is boosting English-language skills in schools to help mount a challenge to the software campuses of Bangalore.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, when he visited India's technology capital in April, had said the two countries could team up to become world leaders in information technology. "The success of the co-operation will help accelerate the development of China's, including Beijing's, software industry," Shang Gong, vice director general of the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission, said in the statement.
TCS already operates through a subsidiary with 250 employees in China, set up in 2002.