BEIJING, Jan. 18(Xinhuanet)-- Chinese software companies, with their huge domestic market and rich human resources, are striving to learn from and cooperate with Ireland, the world's second largest software exporter.

"The software industry has become a strategic industry in China's economy and social development," said Yu Guangzhou, vice minister of commerce here on Tuesday.

China will further step up cooperation with Ireland and other countries to promote the development of the software industry, Yu said, who signed a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) with Irish side on software cooperation after a Sino-Irish workshop on software cooperation.

Addressing the seminar, Yu said Chinese software experienced anaverage of 30 percent annual growth from 2000 to 2003. Software exports also surged from 250 million US dollars in 1999 to 2 billion US dollars in 2003.

The total sales of Chinese software industry soared from 59.3 billion yuan(7.17 billion US dollars) to 160 billion yuan in 2003, according to Yu. The industry's employment scored approximately 620,000 in 2003.

Chinese software's share of the world market is still relatively small, though it increased from one percent in 1999 to 2.5 percent in 2003.