A symposium on information and technology (IT) for youth opened here on Monday to promote the use of IT and e-commerce among the youth of Hong Kong to help them gain a leading edge in the new millennium.

The Symposium of Digital 21 Power for Youth - the Way Forward was held in response to the initiative of the Hong Kong special Administrative Region to promote the adoption of IT and implementation of the government's Digital 21 Strategy to enhance the competitiveness of Hong Kong.

"The involvement of young entrepreneurs in e-commerce will play a pivotal role in shaping Hong Kong's future economic development, " Thomas Tang, executive director of the Hong Kong Productivity council, said at the opening ceremony of the symposium.

Tang continued that with the widespread adoption of the Internet, the success of a company depends a lot on how well a company prepares itself for e-commerce application.

More than half of Hong Kong Internet users are under the age of 30, of them 55 percent have a monthly income exceeding 30,000 HK dollars (3,846 US dollars), reflecting the profile of this use group as young business professionals, Tang said.

According to Tang, among the 112 million Internet users in the world, more than 12 million of them are found in Asia. It is expected that by the year 2003, the number of users in Asia will increase to 90 million and Hong Kong will have some one million users, Tang said.

A series of IT-related activities will be launched along with the symposium, including the selection of ten outstanding young digital persons, e-commerce award, training courses and seminars.

The symposium was jointly organized by the Hong Kong Productivity Council, the Hong Kong Junior Chamber and Ming Pao Daily News and backed by the Information and Technology Services Department of the HKSAR government and Federal Express Corporation. (Xinhua)