Jinan's software industry to hit 500b yuan mark in 2023

Jinan's software industry generated a revenue of 426.29 billion yuan ($59.87 billion) in the first 10 months of this year, ranking seventh in the country in terms of overall scale, officials announced at the 2023 Software Innovation and Development Conference held in Jinan on Nov 30.

The overall scale of the industry this year is expected to reach 500 billion yuan.

One of China's pioneering software hubs, Jinan has since 2019 implemented a series of policies to support the industry, including the "1+N" industrial leading city initiative and the software hub upgrading policy.

The recent action plan emphasizes the implementation of the "Seven Excellence" project to elevate its recognition and influence.

Jinan's software and information technology service industry has 52,000 market entities and 45,000 enterprise entities.

The city's software ecosystem includes domestic basic software, industrial software, and information security software. An increasing number of domestic companies have been emerging and this has resulted in a rise in proprietary software numbers.

Jinan has been bolstering efforts to upgrade its software hubs and parks. For example, Qilu Software Park, one of the first of its kind in China, generated the third highest revenue in the country in 2022. The coordinated development with other city-level software parks has accelerated the industry spatial agglomeration under the leadership of Qilu.

In addition, Jinan has implemented comprehensive measures to train software enterprises and professionals, encourage participation in open-source ecosystems and foster collaboration between academia and industry.