[CAnet - news] 50% European productivity growth due to ICT

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[Some excerpts from article in Converge Digest -- BSA]

www.convergedigest.com


Information/Communication Drives 50% of EU growth

Public and private information and communication technology (ICT) continues
to grow faster than Europe's overall economy, and contributed nearly 50% of
EU productivity growth between 2000 and 2004. 

The European Commission's annual progress report on i2010 shows that
Europeans are quickly embracing new online services. This is supported by a
record number of new broadband connections: 20.1 million new broadband
lines, connected in the year to October 2006, with high broadband
penetration rates in The Netherlands (30%) and the Nordic Countries
(25-29%). The online content market is forecast to grow rapidly for the next
five years, as already seen with the explosive growth of online music sales
and user-created content.

Six countries - Denmark, The Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, the UK and
Belgium - all have higher broadband penetration rates than the US and Japan.
Such broadband penetration levels have positive knock-on effects. For
example ICT-deployment in Danish schools is the highest in the Europe, and
Danish businesses are the EU's most advanced Internet and eBusiness users;
the British and Swedish workforce are the most skilled in ICT; the Dutch are
the most avid consumers of games and music online; and Finland has Europe's
highest use of public access points and invests the most in ICT research
(64.3% of its R&D business expenditure) - Sweden and Finland also spend 3.9%
and 3.5% of their GDP on research, this being over the EU's 3% target.
http://www.europa.eu
30-Mar-07


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