With the advent of the information era, IT and the information industry are becoming the main stimuli of world economy, driving the transformation from industrial society to information society, while causing the institutional reform and changing the realistic economic activities and social life. Just as what Okinawa Charter on Global information Society points out: information and communications technology is one of the most potent forces in shaping the twenty-first century. Its revolutionary impact affects the way people live, learn and work and the way government interact with civil society. IT is fast becoming a vital engine of growth for the world economy.

1. Characteristics and Trend of the World Information Industry Development
1.1 Introduction of the World Information Industry Development
1.1.1 The World Information Industry Development
Over the decade the world information industry has been developing very fast, which has played a vital role in the growth of world economy. In the middle 1990s, IT became the world first industry surpassing those industrial sectors, such as automobile and steel, etc. In the later 1990s, the average annual growth rate of world economy was around 3%, while the growing speed of IT and relevant industries was 2-3 times that of the economic growth. In 1998, the contribution rate of IT and information industry to the world economy growth was 14.7%, and actually exceeded 25% in view of a decreased value of products and services, In 1999, the merging and acquisition transaction in the global information industry amounted up to US$1 trillion, with an average annual 200% growth. Although the information industry of different countries in the world had been affected to certain degree due to the global economic depression starting from the second half of the year 2000, the world electronic information industry as a total still kept a stable increase in 2000. As indicated in Table, in 2000electronic information products of 32 countries and regions in the world (Hong Kong and Taiwan (China), rather than Chinese mainland included) have a production value of US$1.1972 trillion, 12.3% growth compared with the preceding year, and have a market sales volume of US$1.1411 trillion, 9.4% growth compared with the preceding year.

The "911" terrorist attack on the Unites States in September 2001 made the world economy even more sluggish, and brought the world information industry into depression and into a period of adjustment. The information industry, mainly of network economy, has been in a very difficult situation of development. The relevant companies went closed successively, and bubble of network economy gradually disappeared. The world IT market will start to get better in the year 2002 or even earlier, and Asia will develop into an IT market with the highest growth in the world, resulting in a progressive revival of the depressed global IT industry.
In the world information product market, the USA and Japan are still in the dominating position, and their information industry trend has deep influence on the world economy, but Asian countries tend to have a tremendous increase. The USA is the largest production country as well as the largest sales market of information electronic products in the world. In 2000 its electronic information products had a production value nearly 32% of the global value, with a share 40% in the global market. Japan, the second largest production and sales country, has a production value 20.9% of the world, and its sales amounts for 16.4% in the world market. The USA and Japan amount around half of the world total production. In addition, Western Europe amounted for 21.5% of production, 26.4% of sales. Other countries and regions except Japan and the USA totaled 25.7% of production, and around 27.0% of sales. Please refer to the following Table.

1.1.2 Development of world telecomm industry
The developed countries in the world have built up a nationwide and perfect telecomm network system after dozens of and even hundreds of years' development. Along with the uninterrupted development of electronic IT, the telecomm infrastructure of the developed countries has also been keeping improved, especially with the speeding up of the globalization course of telecomm market since the 1980s, the developed countries have also sped up steps in developing international market while breaking the monopoly of domestic market. Some major developed countries in the world introducing competition into their national market and relaxing controls, while carrying out reforms on the telecomm operation and management system, break the monopoly of big companies, open the operation market and encouraging the competition between operation enterprises. Telecommunications of main developed countries has gained rapid development, and with a quite high scale in the national GDP, it has become a vital propeller to drive the economic development of all countries in the world.
Data Communication Networks System has been primarily shaped up in the major developed countries in the world. The USA has established powerful data communications across the continents, countries, states and regions. The broadband of the American Internet is the widest in the world, generally 622Mbps in the domestic, and reaches high up to 20Gbps in some local areas. For the access speed of ISP to users, ISP-access backbone net in the USA generally is a T3 (45Mbps) special line, and every 300 users have one T1 (1.55Mbps) line access to the backbone net.

At present, the owning rate of information terminal station per capita in the main developed countries in the world is very high, for example, reaching around 70% for fixed telephones and 30% for mobile phones, as shown in Table 3. The owning rate of computers in American families has reached 50%, of which 40% has accessed to the Internet. According to the data shown in Yearbook of Computer Industry published in April 2000, it is indicated that based on people using the Internet every week, the top ten countries with the largest number of subscribers are as follows: the USA (114 million), Japan (25.4 million), German (14.9 million), Canada (13.1 million), the United Kingdom (12.6 million), South Korea (12.4 million), China (11.3 million), Italy (9.3 million), France (6.3 million) and Australia (5.3 million).

Since the 1980s, there has been a rapid development in telecomm technology, a fiercer competition in the telecomm market, and a continuous emerging tide of the business system reform, reorganization reform and merging in the telecomm industry worldwide. The world telecomm industry has entered into a new development stage, with the following trends:
(1) Breaking monopoly with competition being introduced in. The long-term monopoly has severely restricted the development of the telecomm industry. Under the impact of the economy globalization and the global informatization, some major developed countries in the world gradually introduce competition into their national telecomm market, relax control, carry out reform on the management system of the telecomm operation industry ,while breaking the monopoly of the giant companies, opening the operation market and encouraging the competition between operation enterprises.
(2)Network technology develops with each passing day and there is a distinct trend in business integration. In recent 10 years, the telecomm network technology has been developing towards business digitalization, technology broadbandization, extensive use of optical fibre-made facilities and grouped transmission. The technological development is changing the basic framework of the world telecomm operation industry form the old one which is based on the circuit exchanging technology and its network structuring technology, to the new one which is based on data, especially on IP exchange, resulting in a trend of mutual integration among the traditional telecomm services, broadcasting services and computer network services.
(3) Global competition of the telecomm market becomes more distinct. The developed countries speed up the development of the international market while breaking the monopoly of their domestic market. With the support from government, telecomm enterprises have realized the restructuring among different trades and different countries by means of combination, merger and purchasing, so as to take over the international market.
(4) Difference of telecomm development level among different countries is gradually widening. The difference in the telecomm field is intensifying the unbalance of the economic and social development among regions.

1.2 Development Trend of the World Information Industry
1. Up and down of electronic information production closely related with the whole environment of world economy
World electronic information production witnesses an up and down situation, which is closely related with the whole environment of the world economy. After the five years of slump in succession from 1988 to 1993, it went quite well from 1994 to 1997. In 1998, it went down severely due to the impact of Asian economic crisis. In 1999 along with the quick economic recovery of the Asia-Pacific region and the strong increase in Europe, the output value of world electronic information products of that year exceeded that before the financial crisis. Although the appearance of the USA economy slump in the second half 2000 greatly affected the course of world economy, electronic information industry in year 2000 still remained a stable development. "911" terrorist attack on the USA in September 2001 made the difficult world economy even more plagued, and the world information industry also stepped into the next readjusting period, the semi-conductor and the personal computer market declined, and the sales amount decreased continuously.
Among the world electronic information products manufactured in year 2000, the proportion of investment section, consumption goods and elements and parts products was 63.6:5.6:30.9 respectively. The development direction of the world information industry is: proportion of products in investment sector increased continuously, and the proportion of production in consumption goods went down gradually, while production of elements and parts still kept a stable proportion.
As shown in the following Table, among the production of various kinds of electronic products, annual increase of electronic elements and parts is the fastest; the second one is the wireless telecomm products and radar products. Development of these kinds of products exceeds the 7% growth rate of the whole products, while annual growth rate of all other different products is below 6%.

2. Rapid development of information electronics production industry in the Asia-Pacific region
Although seriously stricken by the financial crisis, the Asian electronic information industry went out of the shadow in a faster speed than expected, the information electronics production industry developed very rapidly. As shown in the following Table, among the world top 10 countries and regions producing electronic information products, Asia possesses six, and the countries with annual growth rate hitting two digits are also in Asia.

Note: * The gross output value of Chinese electronic industry refers to the current price.
Source: Yearbook of World Electronics Data 2001 and Yearbook of Chinese Electronics Industry 2001
In recent years, Malaysia has completed the adjustment of its industrial structure, while having set up an export-oriented industrial structure with the consumer electronics and semi-conductor industry as the lead. Singapore is also a country which has the export-oriented information industry; its major products are computers and electronic components which account for 35% and 31% of the gross output value respectively. In addition, other countries in the Asia-Pacific region such as Australia, Canada, India and Israel, etc., keep good development in their information industry. Chinese information industry has become a bright spot in the world. In recent years, Chinese information industry has been keeping an annual average output growth rate of 25% or so, three times that of GDP. In 2000, the growth rate of Chinese GDP was 7.1%, of which information industry accounted almost for 1%. In 2001, the electronic information product manufacturing industry still kept strong developing status, the industrial gross output in the first half year increased by 32.9% and industrial sales increased by 34% as compared with that in the same period of the preceding year. Successful application for Olympics in China and entry into WTO will surely bring much more opportunities to China. Chinese information industry under such favorable environment will have a bright future.