The sales income of high-tech businesses in Zhongguancun, dubbed China's "Silicon Valley" in downtown Beijing, is expected to gain 1 trillion yuan (US$125 billion) by 2010, said an official with the high-tech development zone.

The added value of high-tech businesses in Zhongguancun will account for 20 percent of Beijing's total GDP by 2010, said Dai Wei, deputy head of the Management Committee of the Zhongguancun High-tech Zone.

Dai said 17,000 high-tech companies in Zhongguancun registered a combined sales income of 480 billion yuan (about US$60 billion) last year, making up one-seventh of the total income of all China's high-tech development zones for the same year.

Zhongguancun's high-tech sales income for last year doubled that of 2000, Dai said.

Dai said desktop computers made in the Zhongguancun area accounted for 40 percent of the domestic market and laptops made up 25 percent last year. Zhongguancun's software and integrated circuit designing sector accounted for one-third of the country's total and its software exports amounted to half of the national total software exports.

Zhongguancun also takes the lead in China in the fields of digital audio and video frequency, liquid crystal display and the development of chips, among others, Dai added.

A favorable investment environment has attracted an increasing number of talented personnel to start their own businesses in Zhongguancun.

In the past five years, more than 2,000 businesses had been registered in Zhongguancun annually. By the end of last year, over 620,000 people were working in the "Silicon Valley" of China, 7,000 of whom are Chinese students who returned to China after finishing their studies overseas.

Dai said Zhongguancun reported a high-tech transaction volume of 17.5 billion yuan last year.

(Xinhua News Agency March 5, 2006)