Indians' proficiency in English will help it ward off a potential threat from China in the outsourcing space, in spite of the latter's advantage of having cheap skilled labour and a market eyed by multinationals, according to global research and advisory firm Gartner.

"China will not trounce India in the near-to medium-term, as the country has a good hold on English, which is the de facto standard for IT and technology services," Partha Iyengar, Gartner India vice-president (research), said.

"India's 300-year history as a British colony and the use of English as a national language, means it has a huge population of native speakers to draw on, that China cannot match," he said.

"This is a major advantage," Iyengar said adding the English-speaking outsourcing space accounts for 85 per cent of the total offshoring market.

Moreover, Chinese cannot use the Queen's language without the help of an interpreter and while translating, the crux of the conversation is lost. This ends in most of the deals falling flat in that country, he said.

China has an ample supply of trained engineers and had produced over 200,000 graduates in 1999, which is more than three times than that of the US.

They also work for a lower salary, of $500 in Shanghai, as against $700 in Bangalore and $5,000 in the US, he said.