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TAIPEI (AFP) - Global information technology leaders gathered here to draw up a road map for the "new economy" amid a protest against what opponents said could be a world with "new unemployment."
"The progress of information technology (IT) ... has dramatically changed our lives and work," Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian said in his opening address to the three-day 2000 World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT).
For Taiwan's part, he said, "the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) has endeavored relentlessly to develop Taiwan's technology industry for the past half century." And "to mark the beginning of the new millennium ... we have decided to make Taiwan a 'Green Silicon Island,'" a scenario he said would feature highly developed technology and a clean environment.
"Taiwan is a perfect example of invention and reinvention," said Carly Fiorina, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard, as she spoke of the island's "prime virtue" in pressing for economic development. She said the company, which started its business here 30 years ago, plans to purchase $4.5 billion worth of IT products from Taiwan this year.
The congress is bringing together 1,500 executives of international enterprises. "Discussions will center on challenges and the prospects for the Internet and 'new economy'," said an official with the organizing committee. Among the speakers are Fiorina, Bill Gates, Chairman of the U.S. computer software giant Microsoft, and John Chambers, President and CEO of Cisco Systems Inc.
Outside the venue some 100 slogan-chanting trade union leaders and journalists unfurled banners to protest the event, which they feared could lead to a world without work. "We did not oppose the tide of high technology. Nor did we refuse to learn new knowledge from the Internet," the protestors said in a statement. "But we opposed 'new unemployment' to be brought about by 'new economy'," it said. "Instead we thought 'IT new world' should be a 'new world of justice.' The handsome commercial benefits produced by high technology must not go to the pockets of a handful of people," it added.
At the question and answer session following her speech, Fiorina said such worries were unnecessary because adoption of high technology did not necessarily mean human concerns must be compromised
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