JINAN: Microsoft China is building a branch in Jinan, capital of East China’s Shandong province. The branch is expected to open this month at the earliest, according to officials from Jinan.

At the 15th anniversary ceremony of the Qilu Software Park held in Jinan on December 7, Liang Xudong, chief economist at Jinan Bureau of Commerce, said Jinan and Microsoft are working hard on this branch and are currently looking for talent to fill the branch.

This branch is also a movement for Microsoft to extend business in the mainland cities of China. Microsoft has started strategic cooperation with Dongguan, Xi’an, Qingdao and Nanjing.

"This will be a big thing for Jinan, by ‘big’ I mean the demonstration effect and externalities,” Liang noted.

According to Liang’s estimation, around 40 IT and service firms are expected to follow Microsoft’s route to Jinan in the next five years, bringing 15,000 job opportunities, boosting the city’s annual output in these fields to 5 billion yuan and hiking related tax income to 300 million.

Setting up the Jinan branch is an initiative stemmed from the strategic cooperation agreement between Microsoft and Jinan municipal government signed on October 25. The agreement also stipulates the two sides to partner up in a number of other realms including service outsourcing, training and cloud technology.

As part of Jinan’s efforts to develop the information technology industry, a 300-square-meter industrial zone for IT companies and 120,000 well-trained staff are expected to be ready by 2014 - in a bid to prepare for the anticipated inflow of corporations following Microsoft’s landing.

By Zhao Ruixue and Liang Chen (China Daily Shandong Bureau)

Editor: Li Jing