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Stephen Timms MPEnabling e-commerce to succeed ? in the UK and Internationally |
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I would like to talk to you about one of my most interesting tasks as a Minister: working out how to get the right balance in creating a framework for e-business when faced with a raft of new challenges in the regulatory environment. We need to get this right, for our businesses, for consumers and for our economy as a whole. We have to unlock potential on the one hand, and create a culture of consumer confidence on the other, avoiding becoming heavy handed and stifling the creative forces that are indispensable to the growth of e-business. Our relationship with Australasia is hugely important to us, none less so than in the area of trade. We are all clear about the prosperity and increased opportunity for all that the free trade agenda, through the World Trade Organisation, can provide. And I'm sure you want to make the fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in Cancun next September as successful as I do. E-commerce has already become an integral part of that trade relationship and co-operation between Governments is a pre-requisite in helping to establish an enabling environment, a platform for trading opportunities. Helping businesses, large and small, to compete internationally involves reaching out to Governments and regulators around the world and helping to shape a market framework that is competitive, fair, and safe. Let me just bring you up to date with some of our activities since my predecessor, and also my boss, Patricia Hewitt, talked to you back in March 2001. Our goal is to be in the global forefront in e-Business, to ensure that we have an inclusive knowledge economy to operate within the global economy. The Internet is a global medium that requires global action. That's why the UK government has organised an e-summit, which will take place on the 19th November where "e" leaders and officials from the G7 and also from Sweden and also Australia, will meet to discuss the future development of our respective knowledge economies. We decided in the UK, and Patricia Hewitt touched on these points, to identify the conditions in which e-commerce could be expected to thrive and where the Government should focus its efforts. This boiled down to three priorities:
We have made some great strides in the last year and a half in all these areas – and international co-operation plays its role too. Let me give an example. An Australian company, Neo Products, is helping our efforts. Neo manufactures "Interactive Touch Screen Kiosk Terminals" and has supplied a major government contract for 6,000 kiosks to UK job centres, as part of our UK Government Online initiative. The company is winning further business in UK and Europe, employing just under 60 employees in the West Midlands. Those kiosks are in my view a great example of how we can use the new technologies to benefit those who have been on the wrong side of the rich/poor divide in the past, and ensure that we don't put a new digital divide in its place. They replace a system of scruffy little postcards on boards. They provide much more information and do it in a frankly much more respectful way, and they have been part of the very successful drive we have had to reduce unemployment so that it is today lower than at any time for almost thirty years. We can learn from each other and that is one of our greatest strengths. My own Department is pioneering for the UK an information management system (called Matrix)that was originally developed in Australia for the Australian government. It is a database that allows information received and generated across the DTI to be pooled and made available to all. My words to you today will be on Matrix this evening. Our frameworks for competitive markets have to take account of convergence. When the first third generation mobile service is launched in the UK in the New Year and I download the latest TV news bulletin to watch on my mobile handset, should that be regulated as broadcasting or telecommunications? We need legislation that is broad and flexible, and which leaves space for our ICT industries to breathe. Our "Communications Bill", announced in the Queen's Speech yesterday, provides for a converged regulator "OFCOM" which has the breadth of expertise to deal with the issues that may arise in a more flexible and fully joined-up way. We want to minimise regulatory burdens and overlap. OFCOM will be a means to reducing burdens on business and so to help drive innovation, increase investment, raise employment and bring better services to business and consumers. Our plan is to merge the five current regulatory regimes in the communications sector - the Independent Television Commission (ITC), the Broadcasting Standards Commission (BSC), the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel), the Radio Authority and the Radiocommunications Agency. Planning is well underway, and we expect OFCOM to be fully operational by the end of next year. One area where the Communications Bill will not give OFCOM any powers of regulation is over content of the Internet, where we remain committed to self and co-regulatory approaches, which have proved successful so far. Broadband is essential to the realisation of the Internet's potential. The UK is already one of the most connected economies in the world in terms of Internet use, levels of e-commerce and levels of affordability of narrowband. But we are pushing for more. Thanks to competition between the telephone and cable networks, we now have broadband prices among the cheapest in the world – whereas six months ago, UK DSL prices were the most expensive in the G7. And this year's dramatic price cuts have been a key driver for the growth we are seeing at present. Just over a month ago, Oftel announced that we had passed the milestone of the millionth broadband customer in the UK. This success is being built on at the rate of around 20,000 new broadband connections per week – which is among the highest rates of take up growth anywhere. The market is highly competitive. 40% of users have a choice of infrastructure technology. Accessibility and affordability are key ingredients to raising connectivity. Our strategy is aimed at giving everybody the opportunity to benefit from the development of the Internet and helping to extend networks to parts of the country where they would not otherwise be commercially viable. I know there have been similar initiatives in Australia such as Networking the Nation, and in New Zealand projects exploring the role of remote teaching with a target of connecting every community by 2003. To help us extend the Broadband opportunity to everybody, we are setting up a UK Broadband Task Force. This involves placing a broadband expert into each of the English regions and the devolved administrations. Its purpose is to stimulate economic development and a major focus will be on how public sector organisations can aggregate their individual requirements in order to procure broadband together. The regional experts will be complemented by a team of procurement advisors in the Office of Government Commerce whose job will be to provide hands-on support to enable this smarter public sector procurement of broadband. This initiative will become operational from next week. We need to enable our small businesses to compete internationally using e-business tools. That's where our UK Online for Business programme fits in. The focus of the programme has shifted away from getting as many businesses as possible online, to encouraging businesses to develop strategies based around a deeper, more integrated use of ICTs, to transform the operation of their businesses. By promoting more strategic thinking in terms of how e-Business organisations can develop their use of ICTs, businesses can be more efficient, more cost effective, more productive and competitive. And this includes reaching out internationally, as the example of one UK company, Skin Culture, demonstrates. They have managed to increase their sales by 40% by making an interactive web site the driver for their business – and attracting a number of New Zealand customers as a result. There is also an important e-commerce role for governments internationally. E-commerce is global. Our governments are working closely together in institutions such as ICANN, which manages Internet domain names, and the International Telecommunications Union or ITU. We need a more global framework for e-business if we are to maximise the benefits of e-commerce. One area where there is scope for further co-operation is in fostering consumer trust in retail e-commerce – so we can have the same confidence when ordering from Chichester, Christchurch or Cairns. This is especially important to smaller firms - niche players which are not high street names or big brand owners. Our strategy must embrace:
On codes, we have learned from Australia's e-commerce guidelines. And governments could have a role in facilitating closer links between national schemes. On ADR – dispute resolution – I think we should be considering how countries such as Australia and New Zealand could participate in the European Extra Judicial Network, which is being developed here. And on scams our three countries are already working on arrangements for closer enforcement co-operation. One of the most innovative sectors is the computer games sector – where in the UK we have been able to combine effectively our technical skills and creative talent. There are around 6,000 people working in games development in the UK in around 270 studios. UK-developed games typically dominate the global best-seller lists. One third of all Playstation games sold in Europe are developed in the UK. UK-developed games generated an estimated £1bn sales outside the UK in 2000. We value the business relationships that we have with Australia and New Zealand very highly, and there are particularly good links in the creative Industries. "The Lord of the Rings", showing off the stunning natural beauty of New Zealand, is a great example of what can be achieved through the collaboration of some of our finest film makers and technicians – ours and yours – among the best in the creative industries. There have been other recent examples of collaborations that demonstrate the strength of that relationship. Smart 421, a company that provides IT software consultancy solutions to companies, has decided to set up an office in Sydney to service the Asia Pacific market, as a result of having exhibited as part of a British group at CEBIT Australia in May 2002. Stage Technologies which provides automation to the entertainment industry first established links with an Australian company in 1996, but it was not until this year that a contract with a third party was signed. It can take time for these collaborations to develop. In response to the growing interest we have seen from ICT and other companies from Australia and New Zealand in investing in the Britain, Invest UK is strengthening its inward investment teams in both countries. This includes, for the first time, the deployment of a full time Director of Inward Investment into the UK, based in Sydney, but spending a significant amount of his time pursuing investment leads in New Zealand. And this work leads to real opportunities – a Christchurch based company, Alchemy Group, is negotiating a joint venture with a company in the North West of England, looking to provide software and services to the manufacturing sector – all resulting from a recent UK trip. Our team at British Trade International has recently been working on identifying opportunities for companies across the information technology spectrum. From knowledge management systems to business re-engineering services to simulation software. In all of these areas, state of the art technology and systems being developed in Australasia and Britain can be partnered. Our companies can offer Australasian businesses the best gateway into the expanding European market, using Britain as a base, while at the same time Australasian links within the Asia Pacific region offer our companies unparalleled business opportunities in the Asia-Pacific. All of this points in just one direction. As our companies encounter the same sorts of challenges, they will benefit from sharing knowledge, mutual investment and joint ventures. They will continue to forge strong alliances and tackle challenges together. As for Governments, we can only benefit from sharing our experiences too, learning from each other as we will be doing at the e-summit next week, and helping one another to create and sustain the best possible regulatory environment for our industries and our consumers. I hope that more and more Australasian companies planning a business presence in Europe will make themselves at home here in the UK, in an environment designed for e-business to thrive. I thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today. |
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Other speeches by Stephen Timms MP
(the following are available from the archive) |
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