Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India''s top information technology company, will set up a third development centre in China by the end of current financial year to support its growing clientele there.

TCS will also raise the number of personnel employed at its China facilities by five-fold to around 5,000 by 2010, from the present 1,000, chief operating officer N. Chandrasekaran said on the sidelines of the Nasscom Quality Summit in Bangalore.

The company currently operates two development centres in Beijing and HangZhou and serves close to 20 global clients from China.

"China is a fantastic market and the company is seeing good momentum in that country," Chandrasekaran said, adding that TCS would continue to scale up its delivery centres in Mexico and in Eastern Europe. "We may look at opening a second centre in Hungary," he said.

TCS, he said, is aiming to improve its operational efficiencies to offset the impact of currency fluctuation and wage inflation on its margins. It is planning to increase its offshore revenues by around 400 basis points from 41 per cent to about 45 per cent over the next four to eight quarters by moving more work offshore, he said.

TCS, meanwhile, announced the induction of four new whole-time executive directors on its board. With this expansion, the TCS board will have 12 members, including 6 independent directors.

The four executive vice presidents of TCS elevated to the board of directors of the company are N Chandrasekaran, S Mahalingam, S Padmanabhan, P A Vandrevala.

The TCS board also appointed N. Chandrasekaran as the chief operating officer (COO) of the company while S. Mahalingam continues as the chief financial officer (CFO).

"Given the size of the company''s business, the directors have decided to induct four senior executives on to the Board of Directors. The newly appointed executive directors have a wealth of experience and have contributed significantly to the growth and success of TCS and will continue play an important role in the company''s future strategy," S Ramadorai, CEO and MD, said.

TCS also has six independent directors - Ron Sommer, former chairman of Deutsche Telecom, Harvard professor Clayton Christensen; former HSBC chief, Aman Mehta; former Indian cabinet secretary, Naresh Chandra; head of Glaxo SmithKline, Asia, V Thyagarajan and Laura Cha, a member of the executive council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR).