The finance Ministers of the G8 - the world's seven leading developed countries plus Russia - which met in Birmingham last weekend has established special committees to monitor and report on the impact of electronic commerce.
Ministers from the seven have already argued for the removal of legal barriers and for a tax regime that limits avoidance and evasion while not stifling business.
IT in the Global Economy was examined at a seminar organised by Glasgow Development Agency this month and led by Frances Cairncross, author of The Death of Distance, a study of the economic and social effects of the global communications revolution.
Industry analysts forecast that world-wide business over the Internet will rise to between $200bn and $300bn by 2001 when 245,000 companies in Europe and 640,000 in the US
will be conducting business-to-business electronic commerce.
An overwhelming majority of 100 top UK companies expect electronic commerce to increase their sales within three years, according to a survey by accountants KPMG. Almost a third believe sales over the Internet are currently more profitable than traditional sales channels.
Half of the 380 chief executives surveyed by Price Waterhouse thought electronic commerce would significantly change their businesses and another 20% believed it would reshape competition in their industries.
''For Scottish companies prepared to embrace new technology, there could be massive opportunities to break into new markets,'' said GDA chief executive Stuart Gulliver. ''Large and small companies can now offer goods and services to more customers, any place and time.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article