China Leads Developing World in Closing Digital Gap

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 10, 2002

China Leads Developing World in Closing Digital Gap

With the rapid growth of its information industry, China has set a yardstick for other developing countries in reducing their digital gap with developed nations.

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With the rapid growth of its information industry, China has set a yardstick for other developing countries in reducing their digital gap with developed nations.

"Twenty-five years ago, it was the world to tell China what is the direction for the development of information industry. But now,China showed the world what its way is a right way," said Russell Pipe, deputy director of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, who is attending the infoDev Symposium 2002 opened Monday in Chongqing.

"China is a good example now. In the last five-year plan, China passed a file in its highest meeting to say that informanization is the driving force for economy. No other government does like China," said the US expert, "You take the lead."

Jointly hosted by the World Bank and the Chinese Ministry of Finance in this southwestern city, the infoDev Symposium 2002 aims to promote the information industry in the developing world.

Over 250 high-ranking officials, scholars, experts and entrepreneurs from more than 20 countries, including Britain, Canada, Germany, India and Vietnam, are participating in this two-day symposium.

Tran Liu Chuong, an IT (information technology) advisor with the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology, said that Vietnam was deeply impressed by the rapid progress China had achieved in information technology and telecommunications.

Vietnam could learn from China's successful experience, he noted.

Li Zhongzhou, acting director of the division for services infrastructure for development and trade efficiency under the United Nations, recalled that back in 1989, some Western experts had pessimistically said China would take at least 30 to 40 years to catch up with the developed nations in manufacturing electronic products.

"Nowadays, however, mobile phones made in China have seized half of the global market," he noted.

China's information industry is gradually shaking off its inferior status and closing with developed countries, and its information technology is becoming mature and advanced and creating more benefits, said Bruno Lavin, program manager of the infoDev Program of the World Bank Group.

The Chinese government has designated the information industry as the country's "pillar industry". In China's Tenth Five-Year Development Plan (2001-2005), informanization was definitely cited as a "propelling force" of economic growth.

"The information technology industry will be looking at China as a big consumer market, and we can never ignore that China is becoming very competitive," said Bruno Lavin, program manager of infoDev Program of the World Bank Group.

The information products are quickly moving to something which is much more intensive of value and much more sophisticated products in which China is not very competing but will become very quickly internationally competitive, said the WB official.

The Ministry of the Information Industry was working on an ambitious plan to make China a "global base of electronics and the information industry" in just five to 10 years, sources said.

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