Ningbo will offer more incentives to spur the development of the software industry as it looks to develop itself into a national software hub.

More incentives will be put in place for mobile enterprises in the software sector, with a maximum reward of 15 million yuan ($2.17 million) for enterprises who achieve growth, local authorities recently announced.

The move comes after the city announced in September 2018 that it would build itself into a national hub for the software sector with a revenue of 100 billion yuan by 2020.

Newly registered Global 500 companies or China Top 100 software companies in Ningbo in 2019 will be entitled to an award of up to 15 million yuan offered by the local government as long as they meet certain requirements.

The company should have a register fund of no less than 10 million yuan, have achieved business revenue of at least 50 billion yuan last year, and have paid social security bills for at least 100 employees from October to November 2019.

Those which reach a certain size will also be entitled to government rewards. 

Non-embedded software enterprises whose business revenue reaches 50 million yuan, 100 million yuan and 200 million yuan in 2019 for the first time will enjoy one-time rewards of one million, two million and three million yuan respectively.

Meanwhile, the requirements for embedded software enterprises, system integration enterprises and information service enterprises to receive the aforementioned three reward levels are 100 million, 200 million and 500 million yuan.

Software companies whose R&D spending accounted for more than six percent of their revenue and exceeded two million yuan last year will see half of the their R&D expenditures above the six percent of revenue covered by the government, with a maximum of two million yuan.

Those who made the list of China Top 100 Software Companies and China Top 100 Internet Companies and Unicorn companies last year will also receive a one-time maximum reward of two million yuan.