China, HK Complementary in IT Field, ScholarChina's mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) can complement each other in developing information technology (IT), a renowned Chinese scientist said Saturday."The complementarily of the two economies in the IT sector is obvious," said Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering Zhu Gaofeng, who is in Hong Kong to attend the two-day forum "Prospects and Business Opportunities for Cooperation Between the Mainland and Hong Kong." The mainland has a good many of IT talents, and has made well-based basic researches in the IT field, and its market demands are also large, said Zhu. Hong Kong, on the other hand, has ample funds supplies, business talents and well-established links with the outside world, he said. This makes Hong Kong and the mainland very complementary in jointly developing the IT industry, the scientist said. Commenting on the IT development in China and Hong Kong, Zhu said the scale of China's IT industry is the largest in the world and the communications infrastructure is also comparatively advanced. According to latest statistics, there are a total of 43.238 million mobile phone users in China, amounting to 3.5 percent of the total population. The number of domain names have reached 48, 695, ISPs reached 300 and Web sites 15,153. The number of desktops is set at 3.735 million, and notebook computers at 237,000. Zhu said China's web infrastructure is good but the popularity of web is not so satisfactory since the population is too large, and only a limited number of people have access to the Web. Besides, China's IT development is not so balanced. "In some areas we have reached advanced level in the world but in most areas we are lagged far behind," said Zhu. How to achieve a balanced development in IT sector is a major subject facing the mainland and Hong Kong IT professionals, said Zhu. Now both the mainland and Hong Kong have the intention to jointly develop IT but there are still some obstacles to furthering mainland-Hong Kong IT cooperation, Zhu pointed out. Some obstacles are institutional and some lay in people's minds, Zhu said. Only when people on both sides realize each other's advantages, can the two set a good foundation for future cooperation, Zhu said. China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) is set to bring both opportunities and challenges to China's IT industry, the scientist said. After China joining the WTO, China's IT enterprises can enter the outside world and learn advanced technology and experience from their foreign counterparts, which will surely spur China's IT development, Zhu said. But the challenges are also severe, said Zhu, warning that China's IT industry should prepare itself for intensified outside competition. "They must develop and reform themselves to adapt to a more competitive environment, otherwise they are likely to be losers," he said. |
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