The Chinese education sector is stimulating fresh demand for advanced Hong Kong-developed software in the mainland, says local entrepreneur Kwok Tin-ming.
He said the mainland government's emphasis on improving education nationwide had increased opportunities for local independent software vendors (ISVs) such as Trumptech, a specialist developer of education programs he founded in 1996.
Mr Kwok noted that many Hong Kong ISVs showed off their education products at the recent Shenzhen Hi-Tech Expo.
Market research firm PRCDirect estimates that information technology investments in the mainland educational system will grow 20 per cent on average over the next three years. It noted that investment in that period would shift from the existing 75 per cent of IT spending on computer and communications hardware to more software content and technical support services.
A big chunk of the demand is expected to be driven by an initiative of China's Ministry of Education to make computerised education available to 250 million students in 800,000 primary and secondary schools in the mainland over the next 10 years.
All Trumptech product research and development is carried out in the mainland. The firm has about 50 programmers in Shenzhen.
