US software company Actuate Corp has pinned great hopes on the Chinese market and aims to become the biggest business intelligence (BI) software vendor in the country, said a senior executive of the NASDAQ-listed business.

"I want to be part of the fabric of the Chinese economy," said Actuate President and CEO Pete Cittadini in an interview in Beijing yesterday. He added that lots of potential customers, a large need for business intelligence software and tremendous labour resources in research and development have attracted his company.

Actuate will team up with local OEM (original equipment manufacturer) partners and distributors to develop a customer base. The business signed its first OEM partner with Beijing-based HJSoft, which will integrate Actuate's business intelligence software with its enterprise solutions. The partnership may also bring opportunities to win deals from HJSoft's clients like the Ministry of Finance and Air China.

BI software helps companies manage their data and provide reports based on analysis of the data. Actuate also signed an agreement with Bank of China, one of the four large State-owned banks, to provide BI software.