Several top high-technology firms, including Qualcomm Inc, Texas Instruments and TCL Corp, agreed yesterday to set up facilities in a software industrial park in Pudong New Area to improve Shanghai's innovation level.

Other firms, including SAP and Citicorp Software and Technology Services, will also move into the Shanghai Pudong Software Industrial Park located in the Zhangjiang High-Tech Park. The Pudong park was jointly established by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Shanghai city government, and is also the National Software Industrial Base.

The park authorities have invested 600 million yuan (US$92 million) in the new 150,000-square-meter Zone B where the firms will be based. The new firms will hire more than 10,000 software professionals in the park.

The software park's total annual output is set to hit 30 billion yuan this year.

In 2010, the State Council unveiled support for the development of seven "strategic" industries, including information technology, biology, new-energy car and software.