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Korea & Australia ranked e-commerce leaders: Goldman Sachs

The investment bank also stated that China's B2B market would accelerate in 2003-2004.SYDNEY, 30 Jun 2000 (Asia Pulse) - A new report by investment bank Goldman Sachs shows that Australia is among the leaders of the e-commerce revolution in the Asia-Pacific region.
Written by ZDNet Staff, Contributor

The investment bank also stated that China's B2B market would accelerate in 2003-2004.

SYDNEY, 30 Jun 2000 (Asia Pulse) - A new report by investment bank Goldman Sachs shows that Australia is among the leaders of the e-commerce revolution in the Asia-Pacific region. According to the survey, business-to-business transactions are expected to reach $US76 billion ($A126.67 billion) by 2005.

The Goldman Sachs report found that Australia, along with Korea, was one of the first movers in B2B for the region with strong Internet penetration among consumers and a relatively proactive government approach towards e-commerce. "We believe companies have become much more active over the past six months in establishing e-commerce strategies and that the next 12 months will see a focus upon these strategies," the report said.

"Australia's largest telcos, Telstra (Corp Ltd) and Cable & Wireless Optus Ltd are driving B2B adoption with a broad range of initiatives." According to the report, other factors helping Australia's competitive edge included access to a broad range of connectivity options including dial-up, leased lines and broadband. Deregulation of the telco market, meanwhile, had caused prices for these services to decline and new players to enter the market.

"Relative to other Asian governments, the Australian government has been proactive in encouraging the adoption of e-commerce," it said. Goldman Sachs added that other leaders in the region included Hong Kong Singapore and Taiwan, while China's B2B market would accelerate in 2003-2004. "We expect the remaining ASEAN economies to lag further behind - hurting their competitiveness," it said. "Execution of e-commerce plans and needed e-frastructure improvements will take several years to implement but we expect e-commerce to begin accelerating in 2002, led by Asia's more developed economies."

According to the report, B2B transactions for the whole of Asia-Pacific were expected to reach $US440 billion by 2005. "Over the next decade we expect B2B to boost the economic growth of individual Asian economies by 0.2 per cent to 0.8 per cent per annum," it said. Demand for Asian exports was also expected to increase because of the region's role as a supplier of hardware for the new economy.

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