T&T urged to increase IT spending

Published: Wednesday August 13, 2008

A Microsoft executive yesterday called on T&T to increase its spending on information technology (IT).

Microsoft’s Globalisation Research Organisation vice president Amie White, said on average T&T spends the least on IT in the region and the world.

“I would say that the investment in IT should be increased. T&T has the same opportunities New Zealand had about five years ago,” she said.

White made the comments at the presentation of a study sponsored by the Microsoft Corporation on the impact of the IT industry worldwide. The event was held at the headquarters of the T&T Chamber of Commerce Building, Columbus Circle, Westmoorings.

She provided statistics showing that T&T is behind the rest of the region in terms of IT investment.

“In T&T it’s about 0.5 per cent of GDP. The world wide average is 2.5 per cent, the average for the Caribbean countries is around 0.7 per cent. In T&T it should be around 2.3 per cent,” she said.

White said Microsoft’s investment in the economy had boosted Microsoft-related companies.

“For every T&T dollar of Microsoft revenue in Trinidad and Tobago, there is an associated 23.37 generated by other companies in the Microsoft ecosystem in the country,” she said.

White said from 2007 to 2011 the IT sector will generate 940 new jobs in T&T.

She said within the IT sector in T&T, 52 per cent of the people employed come from the Microsoft ecosystem.

Terrence Phillip, country manager, Microsoft T&T said over the next four years T&T’s IT industry will drive $0.2 TT billion in new tax revenues and contribute new revenues of $0.5 billion to GDP.

According to the Microsoft study, 74 per cent of IT spending in 2007 was on hardware compared to only ten per cent on software.


Source: Trinidad Guardian Newspapers
http://www.guardian.co.tt/business2.html