The 117 Plaza is the first construction project in the service zone in the National Software and Outsourcing Industry Base in Tianjin Binhai Hi-tech Industrial Development Area. Construction of the building kicked off in December, 2008. The 117 Plaza, the core building in the service zone with a designed height of 600 meters, has 3 stories underground and 117 stories on the ground, after which the plaza is named. The Plaza, consisting of high-end shopping malls, office space, serviced apartments and six-star hotel facilities, will function as a business card for Tianjin upon its completion, becoming a landmark building in the Tianjin Binhai Hi-tech Industrial Development Area and in Tianjin as whole. The National Software and Outsourcing Industry Base occupies an area of 1.96 million square meters with construction area of 1.91 million square meters. The total investment in the base, one of Tianjin’s 20 key projects to develop its modern service industry, hits 30 billion yuan. The service zone, which will be composed of central business area, residential complex and sports and entertainment parks, will house several corporate headquarters, financial service hubs, exhibition centers and other commercial facilities. The service zone is scheduled to be completed within five years, when its output is expected to reach 100 billion yuan and employ 100,000 people.

Software outsourcing industry, characterized by its high sci-tech value, low pollution and labor-extensiveness, is a major way to transform economic development mode and promote the growth of modern service sector. Both Tianjin Party Committee and Municipal Government attach great importance to the development of software outsourcing industry, continuously stepping up efforts to develop well-serviced and state-of-the-art software outsourcing parks. Now, a cluster of export-oriented software developers located inside Huayuan Software Park is in shape. The Binhai New Area has also established several industrial clusters catering to the software outsourcing and circuit electronic board design and IT outsourcing. It has also some outsourcing clusters such as the system maintenance service outsourcing, human resource management outsourcing. Tianjin was designated by the Central Government as a model city for its service outsourcing industry. The opening-up and development of the Binhai New Area will further inject impetus into and provide more room for the advancement of the software outsourcing and service outsourcing industries.

The service zone will be developed by Goldin Properties Holdings Limited, a Hong Kong-listed developer, which has hired design, planning, construction and other professional service providers to work out the development plan for the project. The zone is expected to be developed into a world-class, environment and eco-friendly software park, serving as a base for software and service outsourcing industries. The zone is aimed to become a leading software innovation hub in the country and to attract companies ranging from software developers to financial services institutions to set up R&D headquarters or offices. The service zone will also provide a complete set of complementary services to meet the needs of development of the hi-tech industry in the Binhai New Area.