Technology is still, and will be, the leading driving force of the future global economy, despite the dotcom crash, a group of analysts in Hong Kong said Wednesday.
Post-dotcom crash, the technology sector is rebounding, and to be sure, the savvy investors never had any doubts, Rich Karlgaard, publisher for Forbes Magazine, said at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Hong Kong.
There is no question that technology, particularly information technology, has driven the success of the global economy over the last 15 years, Karlgaard said, adding that starting from two years ago it came to a sudden halt and now telecommunications and information technology are sicken in the global economy.
In response to Karlgaard's comments, George Gilder, chairman of the US-based Gilder Publishing, said, "Everything has been said about the technology setbacks in the United States is deeply wrong, but what we have seen is the greatest infrastructure buildup in the history of the world economy."
Speaking of the role of technology in the global economy, Gilder said, starting from 1996, the global telecommunications industry has witnessed a rise of 9,000 fold in internet traffic, with a traffic growth rate of 10 percent in the past seven years.
According to Gilder, the world communications infrastructure was completely transformed, and a trillion dollar telecom revenue was created over the past seven years.
"With the continuing growth of telecommunications traffic, dominated by voice traffic, video traffic and video teleconferencing, we are going to see in the coming 10 year from now that another tremendous creation, at least, 100 fold of that kind of wealth creation we have seen in the past," Gilder added.
The acute deflation beginning in the United States in 1996, which triggered the Asian economic crisis and is still working its way through economy in Hong Kong today, is going to be surmounted with technological development, said Gilder, who is also a famous analyst on global economy in the United States.
The analyst noted that technology is made by engineers. He said since China produces 700,000 engineers every year, more than 10 times the United States does, the Chinese people will lead the world economy to a new era of growth prosperity.
Gilder said "the New Economy was real and is going to manifest itself in the future." The concept of internet is also real. "We can never image the potential of new technologies in the development of global economy," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency September 26, 2002)
