China's service industry will become more open to the world, which will bring increasing opportunities for foreign companies, including ones from India, Premier Li Keqiang said during a visit on Tuesday to the Tata Group, an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai.

"We warmly welcome competitive Indian companies to participate in the Chinese market, which will be beneficial for improving the trade imbalance between the two countries," Li said.

Li made the remarks while visiting Tata Consultancy Services Ltd - India's largest software services provider - which is owned by the Tata Group.

Industry insiders believe that the visit is an indication of the company's growing importance in China.

Started as a traditional steelmaking and auto manufacturing company, Tata Group has adopted a more diversified business model to boost profits.

According to Tata Consultancy Services' latest annual report, the company has achieved double-digit growth in all of the market sectors where it operates.

"Information technology services play an increasingly important role in the world. We'll continue to find new growth points in the market and invest in businesses that are tightly related to our clients," said Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Tata Consultancy Services' CEO, after the company released its performance data for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

The company has more than 276,000 employees worldwide and posted $11.6 billion in revenue on March 31.

Tata Consultancy Services has six global delivery centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Shenzhen and Dalian. It can provide services in nine languages including English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian and Vietnamese.

Dong Qiqi, CEO of TCS China, said: "We expect growing demand for outsourcing services in China, and we're ready to provide sufficient services and products," he said.

The company has around 400 clients in the country, including the China Foreign Exchange Trade System, Bank of China, Hua Xia Bank and Guangdong Provincial Rural Credit Cooperative Union.

"We had a lot of experience during our development stage in the past years, and now we're looking to expand our business in China," he said. "Many customers are interested in our cloud computing solution, and it's not exaggerated to say that the clients are finding us instead of we looking for them."

One of the company's key projects in China is iCity, a host of cloud-based IT solutions that aims to provide integrated urban management services to boost people's quality of life and promote economic, social and sustainable growth.

The project is in increasing demand as a significant number of cities in China have a need for similar services.

Technology research firm IDC forecast that IT spending in emerging markets this year will grow 8.8 percent to exceed $730 billion, with BRICS countries - especially China - to continue to dominate.

China will continue to account for more than 25 percent of the IT spending in emerging markets, IDC said.

Contact the writer dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/22/2013 page3)