MAIN PAGE | EVENTS & PROGRAMS | 2001 | IGM | SPEECHES | SHAHRIL SHAMSUDDIN
PACIFIC BASIN ECONOMIC COUNCIL
MAIN PAGE | EVENTS & PROGRAMS | 2001 | IGM | SPEECHES | SHAHRIL SHAMSUDDIN
Regional Vitality in the 21st Century
April 6-10, 2001 — Tokyo, Japan
Dato Shahril Shamsuddin
Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen, first I'd like to thank PBEC for inviting me to chair the session today. With us today we have as introduced many distinguished gentlemen with numerous achievements. Without further ado, I would like to introduce today's topic, which is "Electronic Commerce: A Second Industrial Revolution?" When we talk about revolution, we think about shift of power, is there going to be a shift of power or no shift at all is the question. Many of us will also ponder what are the real drivers of this revolution. E-commerce driven by the mighty enabler the Internet will change and will also accelerate change. If we look into history, electricity, one of our great enablers, took 46 years before mass adoption, the telephone 35 years, the car 55 years, radio 22 years, now the might Internet only in 4 years have achieved mass adoption. With 490 million users, distribution of these users is heavily weighted towards the developed countries. Does this mean a further widening of the digital divide? Question again, how do we narrow this divide for the benefit of all or is it even necessary? Does it mean e-commerce will suck up all those e-transactions back to those developed nations and throw back less valued added activities like manufacturing to the rest of the underdeveloped world. All I could say right now is change must go hand in hand with the management of change but how do we manage this change for the benefit of all? With that, I would like to invite our first speaker Mr. Edward Q. Zeng to start his presentation. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Zeng for sharing his vision on the progress of China and your company through different stages of E-commerce evolution. Interesting to note that the figures are showing Internet users are increasing towards PBEC area, it must be that in the future, funds must be flowing into this area to fund infrastructure to enable E-commerce to evolve. Now I have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Keiji Tachikawa from NTT DoCoMo. Thank you very much Dr. Tachikawa for defining the different segments of E-commerce for us, I'm sure many of us are waiting for the dimension of 3G which will make life easier for all of us. Now I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Harvey Plummer from KPMG Consulting. Thank you Mr. Plummer for giving us your insights and defining the digital divide. Also please allow me to concur with Mr. Plummer the need for a continuing and concerted effort to focus on the development of infrastructure, the need for data security and also a continued effort by public and private sector to try and promote infrastructure development. I also appreciate his appreciate to show us what the digital divide really is through his excellent examples. At least for me, it is difficult to imagine what it is like because for many of us access is always there. Unless you really look at the numbers and look at his examples and have relative comparison, it is difficult to imagine how difficult it is for the people who don't have access and who probably will continue not to have access for a long time. Last but not least, please allow me to introduce The Honorable Roberto R. Romulo, Chairman of the Board of EquitableCardNetwork Incorporated. Thank you very much Mr. Romulo for so eloquently reinforcing the impact of the digital divide. Also for reinforcing again the need for a concerted effort to develop infrastructure, the need to highlight the need to bring down the price of Internet devices so that the masses can afford, and again highlighting the concept of e-readiness and the relative positions of different countries in the world. Thank you. I would like to thank the audience for your attention and your questions and also most distinguished speakers for the exchange of your knowledge and information. Thank you very much. |
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