Asia To Lead Global E-Commerce, Professor Says

ByJohn S. McClenahen The U.S. and Europe could soon lose their leads in e-commerce to several Asia Pacific nations. Led by Singapore, by the year 2004 six of the seven most e-commerce intensive countries in the world will be in Asia, asserts Steve Burdon, a former corporate executive and now visiting professor of e-commerce at Sydney's University of Technology in Australia. Many of the countries, which include India and China, will not be encumbered by inertia stemming from long-established business practices and bureaucracies, making them far more responsive to changes in the global e-economy, he suggests. The quality of goods and services coming out of the Asia Pacific region of the world is continuing to improve and develop, Burdon notes, and the majority of the new millennium's market potential and customers are in the region.