The plan for the Hangzhou Commercialization Center for NationalIC Design was approved recently by a group of experts commissionedby the Ministry of Science and Technology.

　　Professor Yan Xiaolang, head of the IC Designing Experts Group under China's High-tech Program 863, said the city is well positioned and has the infrastructure in place to be the country'snext IC design and commercialization center.

　　Hangzhou has been one of the country's major high-tech industrial cities and selected as one of the cities for development of information technology.

　　With a state-level high-tech industrial park and software development center, Hangzhou is also home to IC research and designing professionals in Zhejiang University and other institutions and emerging IC designing companies.

　　Early this year, the Zhejiang provincial government issued its plan for development of software and integrated circuit industries.

　　The plan provides the industries with preferential policies in tax abatements and exemptions, exports, procurement and the training and recruitment of professionals.

　　In the next five years, a total of 1.2 million information professionals are expected to be trained, 200,000 of whom will be software technicians, according to Chai Songyue, governor of the province