Vice-Premier Wu Yi delivers a speech at the China High-Level Forum on IPR Protection 2007 in Beijing on April 24, 2007. [China Daily]

In an effort to curb software piracy, the Chinese government will require all large State-owned enterprises to begin using genuine software this year, Vice-Premier Wu Yi said yesterday.

The headquarters of the major 157 SOEs, and their large subsidiaries, will follow the lead of most other large enterprises supervised by the central government, which began using genuine copies of software last year, Wu said.

"There are many participants from large SOEs and I want to tell you: you must pay close attention to this," Wu said at an international forum on intellectual property rights (IPR) protection.

She added that other State-owned enterprises and foreign or private companies should also consider using legal software.

Nine Chinese ministries met earlier this year to discuss how to promote the use of genuine copies of software by State-owned companies.

Last year, the Chinese government spent 150 million yuan on genuine software, which it began requiring in 2002.

The government has also told personal computer makers to only sell computers with genuine copies of operating systems. This prompted four domestic computer makers, including the top three in the market, to sign $570 million worth of contracts with Microsoft last year.

"It's fair to say China has made some very important policies that benefit the software industry," said Jeffrey Hardee, vice-president and regional director for Asia with Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represents 27 international member companies, including Microsoft, Adobe and IBM.

An IDC report contracted by BSA said China's piracy rate of packaged software was 86 percent in 2005, down from 90 percent in 2004. Figures for 2006 have yet to be released.

Microsoft Senior Vice-President and General Counsel Brad Smith said earlier this month that 2006 was "the most important and encouraging year for software protection" in China.

An officer with the Delegation of the European Union to China also agreed the country has made progress reducing software piracy, but he urged the world's second-largest computer market to strengthen law enforcement and expand the breadth and depth of the efforts to go legal.

The BSA's Hardee said the nine government agencies adopting legal software should set up an implementation plan to ensure the effectiveness of the process.

He also suggested an audit system be put in place, so software can be verified to build incentives for companies to use legal copies.

Editor: Yan