US Secretary of Commerce Norman Mineta on Tuesday called on Pacific-rim businesses to join governments in ensuring the benefits of the digital age were widely shared.
Companies could help achieve "digital inclusion" by better training their employees and encouraging innovation, he told a gathering of chief executives on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
"Today, I would like to challenge you, join us in this very important undertaking to achieve digital inclusion," Mineta said.
"Failure to address the problem of digital equality could have grim implications for individual companies."
The Asia-Pacific region suffered from major shortfalls in the most basic technology infrastructure, Mineta said.
"You can't talk about access to the information highway when you have no highway," he said.
There were more than 60 phone lines for every 100 people in the United States and Canada, but only seven lines for the same number across the region, he said.
"Imagine if the APEC economies enjoyed (the US-Canadian) level of infrastructure, think about what that would mean in terms of market potential for your companies."
Governments' role was to encourage private investment by setting up the right legal framework, and to foster competition.
But it was largely up to the private sector to build the necessary infrastructure, since often only companies had enough money, technical knowledge and "bottom-live drive," Mineta said.
"Increasingly ... the private sector, often in collaboration with non-profit groups and educational institutions, has assumed responsibility for developing high-tech skills for business workforces in selected industries and communities," he added.
APEC leaders including US President Bill Clinton will call at a summit starting Wednesday for a public-private partnership to bridge the "digital divide" threatening to leave the region's poor even further behind.
"Ministers acknowledged that a digital divide could further widen social and economic disparities across the APEC region," APEC trade and foreign ministers said in a joint statement after a two-day meeting Monday -- BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (AFP)
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