Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it would hire 1,000 engineers in the current fiscal year, joining the current 5,000 staff in China.

"We will add 1,000 engineers," Zhang Yaqin, the company's chairman in the Chinese mainland, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference. "There will be researchers, but most will be involved with product," he said, without elaborating.

The comments come after Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said earlier this month that the Chinese market was important to Microsoft but Beijing needed to do more to protect intellectual property rights.

Microsoft has said more than a fifth of its software running globally was pirated.