Pakistan ranks 127th in global IT

[LahoreEstate]

GENEVA (March 03 2009): North European countries and South Korea have the most advanced telecoms and computer development in the world, the UN's telecommunications agency said Monday. Sweden came on top of the International Telecommunications Union's latest five yearly index on computer development, followed by South Korea, which gained two places, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway.

All of the 154 countries managed to improve their rating in 2007 - the most recent year for which statistics for all communications categories are available - with the exception of 117th placed Myanmar, the table showed. The improvements were largely down to greater access - the availability of technology and infrastructure.

But use, which is often tied to education or skills and individual wealth, was progressing at a much slower rate, the ITU said. The top 20 was dominated by high income countries in Europe, North America and Asia in a largely unchanged pattern over 2002.

Poor countries remain at the lower end of the table with limited access to infrastructure for fixed or mobile telecoms networks, Internet and broadband, according to the ITU. But they are the world's biggest cellphone users.

Several developing or emerging countries, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China and Vietnam, were among the most dynamic areas of overall IT growth. Pakistan in 127th place was the fastest growing after it registered almost no computer access or usage five years earlier, the ITU said. By 2007, eight percent of households had computers and Internet penetration reached 10.7 percent.

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