E-commerce to lift Oz economy
- — 18 November, 1999 21:49
E-commerce will boost Australia's gross domestic product by almost three per cent by 2007, adding an extra year's income onto the nation's balance sheet, a government study has found.
The report also warned that some sectors such as the retail sector, would suffer a negative impact as more consumers buy online.
The report, E-Commerce: Beyond 2000, details the economic impacts of e-commerce in Australia, and was released by Senator Ian Campbell, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Communications, at Online Australia's E-Agenda conference in Sydney.
"The report describes impacts on productivity and competitiveness, as well as the restructuring of entire industry sectors, confirming the wide-ranging impacts of e-commerce," Campbell said.
According to the report, Australia's GDP will increase by 2.7 per cent, real wages by 3.5 per cent, and aggregate employment by a half of one per cent over the next 10 years.
The report provides both positive and negative impacts for specific industry sectors such as tourism, IT and communications, health, education, banking and finance, manufacturing, transport and retail and wholesale trade.
It claims the most successful industries in the e-commerce arena will be those who make the greatest use of the Internet as a tool for doing business electronically -- expected to include the media, entertainment and finance industries.
