Business leaders bid to bridge ‘digital gap’

Date: 23/03/2000

By Peter Chapman

Chief executives from top EU, US and Asian firms will next month demand concerted action to bridge the 'digital divide' between the Internet haves and have-nots.

They will use a meeting of the 'Global Business Dialogue on electronic commerce' (GBDe) in New York to hammer home their message as delegates try to reach agreement on the next round of Internet policy priorities.

Hans Glatz, European spokesman for the GBDe - which aims to influence the e-commerce policies of governments around the globe - warned that the developing and developed worlds risked drifting further apart if steps were not taken to avert this.

"Instead of bridging the divide between the developed and developing world, the gaps are getting wider because the developing world is falling behind in access to the Internet, and on-line education and training," he said.

Glatz admitted that business leaders had selfish motives for seeking to boost access to the information superhighway in the developing world, because it was bad for business if huge portions of the globe were effectively shut off from e-commerce. But he insisted that firms also felt a responsibility to society to ensure that large swathes of the world's population were not left out of the Internet revolution.

Other issues to be tackled at the high-level New York meeting, which will prepare the ground for the GBDe's annual assembly in Miami this autumn, include the taxation of e-commerce, 'alternative dispute resolution' schemes and consumer protection.