Ira Magaziner, senior adviser to the president for U.S. policy development, called for the digital revolution to be driven by market forces in his keynote speech at the Global Information Summit.

Magaziner said U.S. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore believe a new economic age is dawning thanks to advances in digital technology. "This new economic age could have as much impact, if not more than, the Industrial Revolution 200 years ago," Magaziner said.

Since August 1995 Magaziner has been chairing a joint National Economic Council/National Security Council initiative to increase U.S. exports. He has also published a document recently outlining the American strategy for promoting the development of global electronic commerce on the Internet.

Magaziner said the U.S. economy is already being driven by growth in information technology and he expects that trend to expand worldwide. For example, development of the Internet's infrastructure is increasing at a rapid pace as more people log on. Four years ago, the Internet had less than 4 million users, he estimates. Today, there are 100 million people going online.

Business-to-business transactions are also increasing, he said. Last year, American businesses conducted $6 billion worth of business online. Magaziner estimates that these business-to-business transactions will grow to $300 billion by 2002.

Magaziner also reviewed the U.S. strategy toward information technology growth, originally agreed to last July. Government intervention should be kept "minimal, predictable and highly focused," he said.

The U.S. will push to keep customs duties and discriminating taxes off the Internet, he said. "There is a great danger of overtaxing the Internet. That would be a big mistake."

He also called intellectual property rights the "lifeblood of the Internet," and addressed privacy concerns by saying that a new paradigm is needed to deal with the digital age. "We should give power to people to protect themselves" by creating a private nonprofit organization that could monitor web sites and offer seals to those that comply with certain privacy standards.

"We are not interested in having conventional trade negotiations," Magaziner said. "If there's a country that wants to turn in on itself, we won't ask them to change. But it will be too bad for their people because they won't be on the Internet."

Tadahiro Sekimoto, chairman of NEC Corp., told participants of the Global Information Summit in his keynote speech that new technologies would help reshape society and create a unique cyber culture but that quality would still be the driving factor behind success in the digital age.

He also called on Japan to boost its level of investment in information technology (IT) equipment to close the gap with the U.S. Currently, 32% of American equipment investment is in IT equipment, compared with a rate of 16% in Japan. Dr. Sekimoto has been chairman of NEC Corp. since 1994. Before that he was president of NEC for 14 years. He has a doctor of engineering degree from the University of Tokyo.

The NEC chairman said that the recent currency crisis in Asia shows the vulnerability of electronic commerce ideas. "Before virtual currency is used, we have to stabilize real currency," he said. "Without wasting valuable time, I hope Japan, the EU and the U.S. can reach a kind of consensus on electronic commerce."

He also called on English speaking societies to be sensitive to the needs of those societies that don't speak English and to help close the information gap with them.

He suggested that automatic translation systems could help close this gap.

Sekimoto also saw many positive signs in the recent IT boom. There are now almost 5,000 virtual shops on the Internet, he said, and there were practically zero just three years ago. He also said that the triumvirate that has long ruled Japan -- political and bureacratic institutions, and industry -- will have to open up and share more power with other elements of society such as labor and academia.