EDS to double workforce in China

HONG KONG - Electronic Data Systems Corp., the world's largest computer-services firm after International Business Machines Corp., plans to more than double its workforce in China to 2,000 by the end of 2007 to boost its outsourcing operations.

Aided partly by growth in China - still a small slice of its business - EDS hopes to expand Asian revenue to more than 10 percent of global turnover in three to five years, from 7 percent last year, through organic growth and acquisitions.

EDS posted US$1.37 billion revenue in Asia last year, less than 20 percent of which came from China, where it will employ fewer than than 1000 by the end of this year.

The company, which has invested US$50 million in China over the past three years, will spend "much more" over the next two years in the country, Joe Eazor, the company's Asia president and China chairman, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.

"Our goal is to have 1500 to 2000 employees over the next 18 months."

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