broadband in the developing countries; particularly these days, the ICT economic/social-growth driving force such as Internet — referred to as Internet economy — has attracted attention globally.

### 5. ICT Strategic Activities promoted around the World

## (1) International commitment in the declaration by leaders at the Deauville G8 Summit

Internet was discussed in G8 for the first time at Deauville in 2011; the leaders, acknowledging that Internet plays an important role as a source of economic growth, declared as follows: "Internet is a major motive force of the world economy, its growth and its innovation."

OECD has carried out in-depth discussions on Internet economy, hosting its ministerial-level meeting of the ICCP (The committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy) in Seoul, and the OECD high-level meeting focusing on Internet economy in Paris, France in June 2011, where the economic-growth and innovation promoted by Internet economy was discussed.

## (2) Strategic activities by the organizations and governments around the world

Many countries, on the basis of the global acknowledgement mentioned in (1), have taken strategic actions for ICT infrastructure development and utilization, placing ICT at the key position for growth and innovation; many of those countries, where broadband is less available compared with Japan, have activities for ICT utilization in medicine or education, placing the enhancement of the broadband infrastructure at the center position of their economic growth.

## Section 3

## Growth Potential driven by Globalization of ICT

While the countries around the world, paying considerable attention to the economic-growth driving-power of ICT, have taken strategic actions, Japan, as pointed out in the previous status reports, has problems in ICT utilization in spite of its world-leading ICT environments. Furthermore, the ICT industries that have led Japan's economy are losing their global competitiveness, in recent years.

This section, from the viewpoints mentioned above, at first analyzes the major international indices to reveal Japan's status in terms of ICT environment with regards to infrastructure development, availability and utilization. Then, summarizing the contribution of the ICT industries to economic growth, analyzing the trends in the ICT industries, this section makes a factorial analysis on the competitiveness of the ICT industries.

### 1. Review of international indices for ICT

## (1) Trends in major indices

A year-by-year comparison of the ICT international indices publicized by the organizations in the world, to provide a clear picture of Japan's status in terms of ICT, shows that, as for all the major indices, Japan is ranked at around 15th; Japan is ranked at 13th by the ICT's development index and at 16th by the EIU IT-industry competitiveness index, falling largely back from 2nd and 7th respectively in 2007; in the competitiveness ranking by World Economic Forum (WEF), Japan, although climbing from 19th in 2011, is ranked at as low as 18th.

## (2) Spread of ICT infrastructure

### a. Fixed-line infrastructure

The variation of the state of the fixed-line infrastructure spread from 2007 to 2010, by picking-up the fixed-line broadband and the FTTH spread, based on the statistics in the countries around the world is shown in Fig 1-3-1-1.

With regard to the fixed-line broadband, which is called in Japan a “technology having no room for innovation,” Japan is lagging behind other countries in terms of the spread ratio (Japan’s ratio is 26.9% in 2010) and the ratio of broadband users to total internet users (Japan’s ratio is 78.2% in 2010). On the other hand, with regard to the fixed-infrastructure, in terms of FTTH, advanced technology, Japan still leads other countries in the spread ratio (Japan’s ratio is 62.5% in 2010) in the situation where other countries are improving the spread ratio. For example, Korea has come close behind Japan, with an FTTH spread ratio of 58.9% (in 2010), and Sweden has improved the ratio to 30.6% (in 2010).

With regard to the internet spread, Japan’s internet users’ ratio to its population is 79.1% as of the end of 2011, growing from 72.6% as of the end of 2006 with an annual growth rate of 6.5% in five years, displaying a ratio that is not high compared with the major developed countries. One of the reasons $ ^{2} $ is the low spread ratio particularly among seniors (age 55 to 64 or 65 to 74 according to the statistics) or low-income persons, showing distinctive differences in comparison with Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and The Netherlands which have high internet users’ ratio to the population from 85% to above 90%.