IBM has signed an agreement with the Chengdu High-Tech Zone, to establish a Global Delivery Center within the Chengdu Tianfu Software Park. Scheduled to be operational by February 2007, this new center will provide multi-lingual application development and maintenance services to clients globally in English, Japanese and Chinese, and to the IBM Global Procurement Center, recently located to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

"As part of our transformation to becoming a globally integrated business, IBM is focused on amassing the right skills and expertise where they exist to deliver the right services to our clients. The presence of a vast talent pool, technical capabilities and business friendly economic policies make China one of our key locations to deliver world-class services to clients around the world," said Frank Kern, General Manager, IBM Asia Pacific.

The new center at Chengdu further strengthens IBM's existing network of global delivery centers in China across Shenzhen, Dalian and Shanghai. Established since 1999, China Global Delivery Services has been assessed at SEI CMMI Maturity Level 5, the highest in the industry, providing support to clients in America, Europe and Northeast Asia. IBM also plans to aggressively grow the scope of services according to client needs. The globally benchmarked Chengdu center will have local talent working with highly-trained staff from other parts of China and from IBM operations around the world.

Henry Chow, Chairman and CEO of IBM Greater China, said, "The expansion of IBM's Global Delivery Center network to Chengdu is a testament to our commitment to the talent and opportunities we see here."

Henry Chow further added, "The emerging opportunities in western China will enable IBM to further strengthen our global delivery network in China. We look forward to working with our local partners from government, academia and business to see these opportunities to fruition."

The capital of Sichuan Province, Chengdu, boasts a population of 12.2 million. Chengdu is also home to a large number of highly-trained IT professionals, providing a strong pool of talent for the IBM Global Delivery Center. IBM has further committed to work with local universities and government bodies to ensure key skills, such as languages are developed locally.