The software industry is still one of the fastest growing sectors in the country's electronic information field, with a growth rate that is 16.7% higher than that of the industry as a whole, said the ministry.

China's software industry witnessed a 40% annual growth rate over the last five years, expanding its share among the electronic information industry from 6.3% in 2001 to 11.2% in 2005.

The sale of software services and system integration have also become a new growth point for the software industry.

Statistics with the ministry show that the sale of software products were 206.65 billion yuan accounting for 55% of the industry's income, a decline of two percent over 2004. Earnings from software services surged 66.5% to 50.49 billion yuan and make up two percent more of total industry sales than it did the previous year.

The sales of system integration also increased 40.1% year on year to 132.9 billion yuan in 2005, said the ministry.

According to the ministry, China exported software worth 3.59 billion dollars last year, an increase of 28.2% over the previous year. According to the ministry, China has six major software exporting bases and 17 Chinese software companies have won CMM5-international certificates.