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international actions. Major fora, such as the‘Global Business Dialogue’, also bringtogether key industry leaders.How does the UK standon the world stage?4.7 As illustrated in figure 4.1. the UK trailsthe major economies of USA, Canada andAustralia on the measure of the percentageof population with regular Internet access.It is also behind the innovative Scandinavianeconomies of Sweden, Norway and Finland.The chart is drawn from a range of differentsurveys documented by the Irish Web site‘NUA’. 2 Dates above each entry give thesurvey date for each country and so the olderFinnish, Canadian, Singaporean and Frenchsurvey data are likely to significantlyunderstate their relative performance. Formore specific business measures, such as useof Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) andexternal e-mail, the pattern is very similar,as shown in figure 4.2. Of particular notehere is the strong relative improvement inperformance over the last year shown byGerman and French companies. UK'sleadership among the major Europeaneconomies is clearly under threat.How does the UK compareagainst other Europeaneconomies?4.8 Figure 4.3 gives more detail on UKperformance against other Europeaneconomies for percentage of populationregularly accessing the Internet. Again thisdraws on a range of surveys collected on theNUA web-site. Not all countries have dataavailable for all the dates, but the strengthof Finland and the dramatic growth in Irelandin response to a programme of marketstimulation are notable.4.9 Figure 4.4 shows estimates of totale-commerce expenditure as a proportionof GDP in the UK and the other majoreconomies for 1998 and for 2003. It reflectsthe widely held view among industry expertsthat the next few years should see theWestern European e-commerce market catchup significantly with the US. Figure 4.5 showsthat the UK has a high share of that market,reflecting both a relatively high user base andalso the fact that those UK Internet users whodo buy on-line tend to spend more onaverage than those of any other Europeancountry.BENCHMARKING UK INTERNET USERS – WORLD% of population, dates of survey by country are indicated45 5/9941403530255/99375/99366/98356/98311/992420151012/9818 11/98169/97153/9914 10/98113/99106/98750SwedenUSANorwayFinlandCanadaAustraliaUKNew ZealandSingaporeNetherlandsJapanGermanyFranceSource: NUA drawing on multiple published studies Figure 4.12URL: www.nua.ieE-commerce@its.best.uk19