Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/tianmunews.com]

The service outsourcing industry has become an important engine for Hangzhou in building a new development model and cultivating new strengths in international cooperation and competition, local media outlets reported.

According to the Hangzhou municipal bureau of commerce, Hangzhou saw a total of $16.747 billion in service outsourcing contracts and $8.904 billion in offshore service outsourcing contracts in 2022, both historic highs.

Last year, the total proportion of Hangzhou's offshore information technology outsourcing and knowledge process outsourcing amounted to 95.57 percent in the entire service outsourcing sector.

Business areas with higher knowledge requirements, technical level, and added value, such as software development, industrial design, pharmaceuticals (traditional Chinese medicine), and biotechnology R&D, maintained a higher proportion, accounting for 70.87 percent of the city's offshore information technology outsourcing contracts.

The in-depth integration and mutual promotion of service outsourcing with modern services and advanced manufacturing have promoted the upgrading of Hangzhou's industrial chain.

In 2022, the main sources of service outsourcing in Hangzhou extended to 182 countries and regions. Among them, over 20 percent were countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative and RCEP member countries.

A former edition of the China International Service Outsourcing Trade Expo in Hangzhou. [Photo/WeChat account: CCIIP_]