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A national conference was held on Monday in Beijing to help enforce the ban on unauthorized software in 147 central government departments, which demonstrated China's determination to strengthen intellectual property rights protection, People's Daily reported on Tuesday.
Yan Xiaohong, vice-minister of the General Administration of Press and Publication, told the conference that 12 teams will start a national inspection tour early next month to supervise the use of licensed software.
The State Council has ordered all central government offices to use licensed software by the end of May and all local government offices to do the same by the end of October.
Between October 2010 and Feb. 10 this year, central government offices spent 41 million yuan, or 6.16 million U.S. dollars, purchasing or updating nearly 54,000 sets of licensed software, according to People's Daily.
Meanwhile, many local governments have taken steps to ensure that they use licensed software.
Qingdao, a coastal city in East China's Shandong province, as the pilot city, has spent nearly 77 million yuan on 15,278 licensed software products, according to figures from the local government.
Other major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Dalian and Ningbo, have already met the target set by the central government to eliminate the use of pirated software.
China has made remarkable progress in the fight against software piracy during the past few years. Software will be classified as fixed assets in future government procurements, according to a Ministry of Finance notice in late 2010.
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