Text V. International Digital Economy

    We’re finding a very, very rapid growth now of commerce on the Internet, particularly in the area of businesses working with other businesses. Many businesses are beginning to put their purchasing, supply chain management, inventory control, customer relations, and logistics, on the Internet. And we think there will be over $300 billion of business-to- business commerce of this sort on the Internet within four years.

    The companies that have begun working like this – companies like General Electric, Boeing, Cisco, Federal Express, and Wal-Mart – are experiencing very dramatic productivity improvements as a result. Cisco, the high-tech company that makes Internet routers, began to sell on the Internet only 18 months ago, and already a third of its sales, two billion dollars, are on the Internet.

    We’re also finding that companies that serve consumers through the Internet are beginning to grow very rapidly. A new company called “Amazon.com.” just began selling books on the Internet two year ago. In their first year, they sold $16 million of books. This past year they sold $150 million worth of books, and now their major competitors, traditional chains of bookstores, are going on-line.

    We think that about 20 percent of all books sold in the United States next year may be sold on the Internet – up from nothing three years ago. We’re seeing similar Internet sales growth in products as varied as retail banking services, airline tickets, flowers, even automobiles. So, this is an area of very rapid growth.

    In general, we think that the Internet and electronic commerce are still developing faster in the United Stares than in Europe. I should say that Internet use is spreading rapidly in Europe now, but electronic commerce, we think, is for now growing faster in America. There are also major differences within Europe. From the statistics that we’ve seen, and from what I’ve learned on recent trips, a number of the Scandinavian countries, for example, are adopting the Internet and electronic commerce at about the same pace as the United States – quite rapidly. Some of them even have a higher per capita usage of the Internet that we do in the United States. I think if Europe focuses on developing the right climate for electronic commerce, it will catch up very quickly.

    The U.S. government believes that it’s best for our economy and best for the development of this new digital age to try to set a predictable legal environment globally for the conduct of commerce. That means trying to agree on common frameworks for things like document authentication, digital signatures, the formation of contracts, and the protection of intellectual property.

    But, in general, we think that governments should stay away from regulating, over-taxing, or censoring the Internet because we fear that if governments become too involved – if they create this as a regulated industry in some way – that will strangle the growth potential that we see.

    We advocate a market-oriented approach to the development of the development of the digital economy. We feel this approach should not be similar to the way we in the United States have historically regulated the telecommunication or broadcast industries. We believe Internet commerce should be an environment where buyers and sellers can come together free of government interference, and it should be a contract-based system. In principle these development should be led by the private sector, and privately established codes of conduct should govern, not government regulations.

 

Vocabulary notes

rapid growth – быстрый рост

to purchase – производить закупки

productivity improvements – улучшение (рост) производительности

to supply chain management – обеспечивать постоянный менеджмент

to experience – испытывать, переживать

consumers – потребители

to vа ry – варьировать, разнообразить

retail banking services – банковское обслуживание розничной торговли

to adopt – принимать, пользоваться

at the same pace – с такой же скоростью

per capita usage – использование на душу населения

to catch up – догнать

digital age – век цифровой (электронной) технологии

predictable – предсказуемый

digital signature – электронная подпись (знак)

framework – структура

over- taxing – чрезмерное налогообложение

censoring – цензура

environment – окружение

broadcast – широковещательный

 

⇐ Предыдущая11121314151617181920Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: