The External Environment and Demand Conditions
While globalization and increased international competition
should, in principle, make it easier to narrow gaps across
countries, the accelerating pace of change and the difficulties for
many developing countries in getting started may bring about
the opposite result. Indeed, these trends may have given rise to
three overarching challenges.
The first challenge concerns the existing institutional regime.
Technological change combined with increased economic
interdependency intensifies international competition and this
adds to pressure for adjustment and restructuring. Such
pressure can adversely affect late-industrializing economies such
as the PRC, which are already facing pressure to change other
aspects of their economic structures.
The second challenge involves the importance of a developed
information infrastructure. In addition to physical facilities, nonphysical
infrastructure, such as the legal and regulatory regime
and the intellectual and innovational climate, plays an important
role. Addressing these needs will require developing a dynamic
information infrastructure that can facilitate the effective
communication, dissemination, and processing of information.
The third challenge concerns human resources development.
Access to information (local or global) is meaningless unless the
information can be applied. Hence, many information technology
applications presuppose a highly skilled labor force. These
applications require researchers and technicians capable of
dealing with a spectrum of information technologies, a workforce
that can use the new production technologies, and a general
population that can use the resulting products and services
effectively. In addition, the educational requirements for the
information economy are growing ever more complex. The rapid
development of human resources is a critical challenge for the
PRC. In order to meet this challenge, the PRC must develop
strategies to enhance and enlarge its core of knowledge workers.
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The views expressed in this paper are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), its Board of Directors, or the governments they represent. ADBI does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no responsibility for any consequences of their use. Terminology used may not necessarily be consistent with ADB official terms.
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