CCID Consulting, a leading consultancy in China, published a report on Sept. 27 which says the demand from SMEs has become a driving force of China��s information technology market. Their investment on going digital have been larger than big enterprises for 3 successive years and is expected to exceed 230 billion yuan in 2009.

In 2004, SMEs made considerable progress on the application of information technology. The most significant increase took place in software investment which totaled 17.16 billion yuan, accounting for 15.8 percent of the spending on information technology and 2.2 percentage higher than that in 2003.

The management software is still the main choice. IT producers have shifted their attention to fast growing SMEs from large enterprises.

The survey also noticed the change in 2004 that SMEs focused more on integrated solution to whole business operation than financial software.

CCID Consulting predicts the SMEs will create an 18 percent rise in China��s IT market in the following three years. In 2004, the market topped 100 billion yuan.

By People's Daily Online