Deloitte, a world leading professional services provider, is planning to beef up its staffing pool in China from the current 6,000 to 9,000 by 2009 to handle its growing business in the country, a top executive said yesterday.

"Currently we have 6,000 professionals in 10 offices in China serving our clients and we expect (the number) to be in the range of 9,000 in 2009," said Manoj P. Singh, regional chief executive officer for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Asia-Pacific region.

"Our presence is sometimes dictated by the needs of our clients," said Singh, who took the post in 2003.

"Building larger practices on the (Chinese) mainland is part of our growth strategy," the CEO said.

China is already one of the top eight markets for Deloitte's global operations as measured by staff numbers, Singh told China Daily at the sidelines of the World Economic Forum China Business Summit, of which Deloitte is a Strategic Partner.

The service firm has seen tremendous growth in China in the past few years thanks to the country's booming economy, he said, declining to reveal specific revenue figures.
Deloitte achieved aggregate revenue of US$18.2 billion last year, a 10.9 per cent increase over the US$16.4 billion reported the previous year.

"We have been growing at a double-digit rate both in terms of headcount and revenue in China in the last couple of years," said P. Christopher Lu, regional managing partner and also the head of Deloitte's China Clients & Markets Group.

Singh said the firm's market share had increased four-fold among the top 100 Chinese companies over the past three years, including not only auditing services but also consulting, tax and other services.

"Our strategy is focusing on building our brand around the transformation of Chinese companies, especially for those top 100 and 200 firms," Singh said.

He said the services firm is well-positioned to provide auditing, tax and management consulting services to help build domestic enterprises into world-class or Fortune 500 companies.

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