Luan Qingwei, director of Dalian Municipal Information Industry Bureau, has disclosed that the output value of Dalian's software industry will exceed CNY40 billion and the export value will be more than $1.5 billion by the end of the 11th Five-year Plan.

Lian says that there are four software institutes in Dalian which educate more than 20000 software professionals each year. However, the city is still short of 80000-100,000 software talents. Lian said that the Bureau will allocate about CNY20 million to help enterprises solve the shortage of software talents.

Dalian achieved more than CNY10 billion income from software sales in 2005, an increase of 43% compared with the same period of the previous year and the software export increased by 50% year-on-year with a total export value of $300 million.

There are 510 software and IT enterprises in Dalian in the year, increasing by 13% from the year before.