Abu Dhabi Media Summit

Technology in all kinds have potential to drive economic growth

Tarek el masri is the managing director of the middle east office of mckenzian company,

He s going to share the highlights of the recent report that he conducted  Few years ago with Dick Costolo CEO of Twitter on the interplay between the Internet and economic growth

The major question was  wether the Internet is creating jobs and moving us along and promoting growth or the deflationary power associated with the Internet, the price pressure and the increase in productivity are negatively impacting on jobs creation and growth were worst.

Only 3% of GDP in developed countries and 2% in developing countries are created bcz of the internet

How does this affect for job creation?

We know the internet increases productivity that means fewer jobs

In the developed world, for every job that was reduced 1.6 jobs were created due to the internet

But in the developing world, the number is double, so the internet is creating more jobs in the developing world than it is in the developed world

One of the best ways to accelerate job creation and growth, is the role that government plays 

The number in the middle east is misleading because the e-government index is misleading due to the mixture of hyper developed (UAE) and the less developed

What really creates the ease of the index

It is divided in 3 pieces:

-The ease of starting a new business

- the ease of financing a business

- and the internet accessibility

A lot of investments are happening on the internet accessibility and this can be found mostly in Qatar , UAE and Riyad 

In conclusion, the internet is creating on average 3.1 jobs for every job reduced, so it is promoting growth and job creations.