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<DIV>From the <A
href="http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069132046300">Financial
Times</A>: The outsourcing of business operations via the internet could earn
some of the world's poorest countries billions of dollars over the next few
years, according to a United Nations study. In its <A
href="http://www.unctad.org/Templates/StartPage.asp?intItemID=2629&lang=1">latest
annual report on electronic commerce</A> published yesterday, the UN Conference
on Trade and Development (<A href="http://www.unctad.org/">Unctad</A>) says
offshore outsourcing could generate some 3.3m jobs worldwide by 2015, 2.3m of
them in India and most of the rest in developing nations, the report adds.
Though India's skilled English-speaking workforce and low salaries have enabled
it to capture a dominant share of the international outsourcing market, the
report notes that business process service providers are emerging in countries
as varied as Bangladesh, Brazil, China, the Philippines, Romania, Russia,
Singapore, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam. Unctad nevertheless points out that
internet use depends not simply on income levels but also on government policy.
"Internet penetration rates in developing countries with comparable income
levels vary by as much as 25 times," it says. In particular, the report
recommends the use of free and open-source software.</DIV></BODY></HTML>