Promoting Innovative Development in the Asia-Pacific Region Through the Internet Economy

ICT and Internet economy development has been one of the main interests of Asia-Pacific regional cooperation from the early stage of APEC and the Telecommunications and Information Working Group (TEL or TELWG) was established in 1990 to promote building the Asia-Pacific Information Society (APIS). The objective of this study is to highlight and analyze the economic benefits ICT development or the Internet economy will offer as a new source of economic growth, promoting innovative development in the Asia-Pacific region. This study begins by briefing the activities of APEC and the APEC Telecommunications and Information Working Group and then overviews the current state of ICT development in the APEC member economies based on the ICT Development Index (IDI) published by ITU, analyzes the potential benefits of further ICT development in terms of economic growth, or in some sense, productivity growth, and finally presents implications and suggestions for ICT development or the Internet economy to facilitate economic growth of the Asia-Pacific region. Some of the findings and implications of this study are as follows. Despite the huge gaps among the APEC member economies, ICT as a whole has been developed significantly in the APEC region and the gaps have also been reduced in general during 2002-2012. The progress seems to be converging rather than diverging among the APEC member economies. However, there are still huge and enlarged gaps between these economies when it comes to ICT utilization. APEC therefore needs to make efforts to bridge the ICT development gaps existing among its member economies, especially regarding ICT utilization, in addition to continued efforts to further close the gaps in ICT infrastructure, which is regarded as a great achievement of the previous decade. ICT development is expected to bring about significant progress in the economic growth of each of the APEC member economies as well as APEC as a whole. APEC can share the experience of member economies with extraordinary progress in ICT development between 2002 and 2012, such as Viet Nam, Russia, Indonesia, China, Philippines, Peru, Malaysia, etc. APEC needs to identify and share their success factors and policy experiences.