While the development of electronic-government initiatives is still in the early stages in China, IDC Internet research manager Nathan Midler said significant improvement is being seen in areas such as digitalising administrative processes. Although online [government] services are weak in China, there is a big improvement.
"Other countries] don't understand how Chinese people are getting easier access to government information,'' Midler said, citing online listing of legal documents as one example.
However, he added, most IT spending by Chinese governments was skewed towards operational efficiency in government agencies, and less on building up a government portal for direct service delivery to citizens.
For example, 72 per cent of the US$3.6 billion (HK$28.08 billion) IT spending by government last year was on hardware, indicating a heavy focus on network buildout.
Developing e-government initiatives does not mean similar development in "e-democracy'' in China, or greater and more active citizen participation in political and governance processes through the use of the Internet, mobile communications, and other technologies, Midler pointed out.
"IT only allows government to change in the direction that they want to go ... it won't change the fundamental political structure of a country,'' he said.
A further indication of just how much China is spending on IT hardware in both the public and private sectors, according to IT research house Gartner, is that it is now the biggest market in Asia Pacific for personal computer (PC) sales, with 2003 sales of 13.3 million units, up 10.4 per cent year on year.
The figure represented 44.7 per cent of all PC sales in the region.
In Asia-Pacific, excluding Japan, IDC said IT spending by governments will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.1 per cent between 2002 and 2007. This means IT spending by various Asian governments will increase to over US$15 billion by 2007, from a little more than US$7.5 billion now. The public sector will be the third biggest IT spender behind insurance and process manufacturing, Midler said.
Quelle: The Standard, 13.02.2004
