An interdisciplinary research platform focusing on the development and innovation of outsourcing in China was established on Monday.

The Chinese American Research Center on Global Outsourcing was jointly established by the Antai College of Economics and Management at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Duke University's Fuqua School of Business.

The center will conduct evaluations on Chinese cities' core competitiveness in the outsourcing industry, and launch a survey on the future strategic directions of China-based service providers. The survey will be conducted with the Duke University International Offshoring Research Network (ORN) project.

Liu Yi, director of the center, said, "Our research finds that banking will be one of the fastest-growing sectors for the country's outsourcing industry in coming years, and its competition will also be getting tougher."

The research team earlier surveyed about 250 Chinese outsourcing firms. Among them, 38 percent said banking was their most important market, followed by consumer goods, with about 28 percent, and automobiles, at about 24 percent.