Economic transformation and industry upgrades have become more urgent due to the impact of global financial crisis. At a municipal economic work conference, the Municipal CPC Committee and Government designated the leading industries of the Huaqiao Economic Development Zone and financial BPO as being the major industries of the city. As the only provincial development zone that has the modern service industry as its leading industry in China, the Huaqiao Economic Development Zone will play an important role in the new round of industry adjustment and transformation.

The global financial crisis, which is still spreading and is showing no signs of coming to an end, means that local economic development, cannot be immune to its adverse implications and impacts. Therefore, this year will be the most difficult year since the beginning of the century for social and economic development. While there are serious challenges, opportunities still exist. Financial crisis has resulted in an adjustment and reorganization of financial industry worldwide, and many financial organizations in the developed countries of Europe and the US have stepped up their outsourcing of non-core businesses in order to reduce costs.

Financial BPO is the future for cost reduction, process reconstruction, and resource integration, and is a choice that cannot be overlooked. Therefore, this is a rare opportunity for the development of the Huaqiao International Service Business Park, a business park that neighbors Shanghai and has basically formed a complete financial BPO industry chain.

Opportunity always favors those who are prepared. In fact, the Business Park placed financial BPO on the development agenda before the explosion of financial crisis last year. At that time, the Business Park actively adjusted the strategy and style of investment seeking to suit the requirements demanded by industry development. Moreover, the Business Park coped well with seeking investment from Europe, the US, South China, and Taiwan. Projects of foreign investment and non-government capital, all part of industry chains and bases, were managed in a professional way. On December 16, 2008, the Business Park changed its business promotion, which covered business briefings in different areas and attracted business through favorable land and tax policies. Now, instead, it held a financial back-office business salon in the Shanghai Financial Center- Lujiazui, where professional, detailed and targeted business promotions were staged. The salon received such a positive response that one financial company started to negotiate for cooperation on the second day of the salon. Professional and detailed business promotion has achieved wonderful results. Last year, the Business Park successfully arranged for China Data Group, which occupies 80 percent of the domestic financial BPO market, to set up in the Business Park within 28 days and invited Start Computer Equipment, which occupies 40 percent of the printing service outsourcing market for China's life insurance industry, to set up within 6 days. The Business Park has created a series of miracles in the seeking of investment.

The financial crisis has had a huge impact on the service outsourcing industry in India and other countries that started very early and rely heavily on the US market. However, this is a blessing for domestic service outsourcing enterprises that have made a late start in the industry. The financial crisis caused a surge in mergers among international banks, enabling newborn domestic service outsourcing enterprises to keep up with countries like India and service outsourcing regions that have long established service outsourcing businesses. Mergers among banks in Europe and the US will result in the outsourcing of many bank businesses. Meanwhile, domestic financial institutions that have now only 20 percent of their businesses outsourced will join the international trend, leading to the creation of a huge financial outsourcing market. Quickly seizing this opportunity, the Business Park, using its own advantages, accelerated the introduction of leading financial BPO enterprises, and created a transfer service to hasten the normal operation of enterprises they had invited with the aim of occupying the market quicker. Today, the Business Park's Asia-Pacific Plaza has become the "incubator" of the financial BPO industrial base. The building is home to more than 30 upstream and downstream enterprises all within the financial service outsourcing industry, such as France-based Capgemini, China Data Group, and Yuanyang Data. By creating the transfer service for service outsourcing enterprises, the Business Park has not only formed high, medium, and low-end financial BPO industry chains, it has carved out the divided fields of service outsourcing, jointly baking a "cake" of financial service outsourcing and successfully developing this "Blue Ocean" market.

Innovation is one way to meet challenges, and more importantly, it is the key to grasping opportunities. The Business Park made bold innovation last year, introducing new policies regarding human resources, and deciding to invest 300 million yuan over the next three years as special fund for talent introduction in the modern service industry. Meanwhile, relevant policies have been formulated to boost the service outsourcing industry. Furthermore, the Business Park is well aware that it is of utmost importance to properly navigate capital leverage during crisis. So this year, the Business Park will make use of the industrial fund for financial BPO to develop service outsourcing. In this way, with only small funds, the government can play a leveraging role in boosting the development of financial BPO, as well as in the transformation and upgrade of the whole industry.

We are fully aware that situation is grim and that we are faced with unprecedented challenges. However, at the same time, we should realize that opportunity always coexists with challenge, as does difficulty and hope. Although the domestic and foreign environment is currently very complicated, the world's economy and society will not stop progressing. The law of world economic development proves that after each economic crisis, while some enterprises will have been made bankrupt, there will be a large number emerging with new core competitiveness. Encountering this rare historical opportunity for restructuring, upgrading, reforming and reviving, the Business Park has the qualifications, abilities, and confidence to convert crisis into opportunity and will make financial BPO a "green engine" in boosting the city's modern service industry.