China is also a major manufacturing center, but the U.S. is still the leader.

Among the challenges that China faces are competition from India and other emerging Asian countries, and demographics, said de Marcillac. He said that inflation is definitely coming in China due to the one child per family policy, which will result in a declining working population, but at the same time there are a lot of workers tied up in 'useless employments' as an alternative to unemployment.

India is another country with high potential, he said. 'India is a very important part of the offshore market.'

The country's IT revenue in 2005 was just over US$30 billion. The forecast for 2006 is close to US$40 billion, and the forecast for 2009 is over US$60 billion.

The IT spending in the BRIC-countries ' Brazil, Russia, India and China ' is expected to rise from US$50 billion in 2004 to US$115 billion in 2009, said de Marcillac.