is looking into possible investments in the area, a spokesman said.In each case, the firms are using Dalian as a low-cost support centre for their operations in Japan, which lies about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) to the east.
Dalian is even closer to South Korea -- both ethnically and geographically -- and many Korean firms are also said to be considering offshore call and back office centres in the city, according to industry executives.
The city's development into a major call centre parallels similar trends in India, the Philippines and Singapore, whose abundance of English language speakers have attracted firms looking to support their U.S. operations.
In a recent survey, India and China were listed as Asia's top outsourced-call centre countries, with 96,000 seats in India and 38,000 in China, but most of the Chinese positions were believed to be local language operators. The Philippines was third with 20,000 seats. India's call centre industry was projected to grow 65 percent next year to 158,000 seats, and China's was expected to rise 41 pct to 53,500, while the Philipines was expected to grow to 40,000.
OFFSHORE OUT THERE
In most cases, customers call a local number in the United States or Japan and have their calls routed to off-shore centres without ever knowing it.
"Dalian remains one of the cities closely tied with Japan," said Alex Wong, chairman of Hong Kong-based call centre operator 800 TeleServices Holding Ltd.
"Relatively, it's a small city. But in terms of Japanese companies they have over 1,300. Lots of Japanese know Dalian quite well, and many were actually born there."
Dalian and large parts of northeastern China, a region once called Manchuria, were occupied by Japanese forces from 1931 till 1945. The area today is also home to Chinese nationals of Korean descent.
Wong's firm opened a Dalian call centre with Japanese partner Masterpiece Inc eight months ago and now employs about 70 people there, with plans to double the headcount by the end of the year.
Wong and others said they have also set up call centres in other Chinese cities, but most of those are limited to Chinese language support due to limits on local talent pools.
CHEAP LABOUR
Like other off-shore call centre hubs, Dalian's major attraction is its low-cost labour -- a critical factor for the labour-intensive business, said Bennie Ho, secretary for the Hong Kong-based Call Centre Association.
He said an average Dalian worker costs less than HK$1,000 (US$128) per month, compared with HK$8,000 in Hong Kong.
"Most Dalian people can speak Korean, and most of the university graduates can also speak Japanese," he said. "That's why people are choosing Dalian as a call centre.
Dell opened its Dalian centre last October, and uses it to provide back-office functions, including accounting and customer support, for its Japan operations, said spokeswoman Judy Low. She declined to say how big the centre is.
The move into Dalian coincides with an aggressive push into China by Dell, the world's largest PC maker, which has become China's number three PC seller with about 6.2 percent of the market, according to data tracking firm IDC.
Korean call centres are still relatively scarce in the city, said Wong. But he added he is exploring the possibility of adding Korean firms to his joint venture centre to take advantage of the abundance of native Korean speakers in the area.
"That will be the next step," he said. Reuters
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