“Serbia ranks sixth among Balkan countries in terms of the Internet users with 51.5% of active users. Slovenia ranks first with 72%”, the report titled “Digital Globalization: The New Era of Global Flows”, compiled by the McKinsey Global Institute, says.
When it comes to the number of mobile phones per capita, the situation is completely different. Serbia ranks second in the Balkans, right after Montenegro.
People in Serbia use the Internet mainly on their mobile phones (Serbia ranks second in this). In terms of the number of people that have access to the broadband Internet, our country takes up the fifth position in the Balkans. In regard to using social networks, Macedonia is the first in the Balkan area, followed by Montenegro, Slovenia and Albania, while Serbia occupies the fifth place.
The McKinsey Global Institute, which has analyzed 139 countries in segments like inflow and outflow of goods, services, people and data, has noticed a huge gap between a handful of leading countries (which belong to the top quartile) compared to the rest of the world. Singapore tops the latest list, followed by The Netherlands, the United States of America and Germany. China has managed to jump to the seventh place in terms of the Internet connections.
The report also says that “if countries in the bottom three quartiles had increased participation in flows at the same rate as the top quartile over the past decade, global GDP would be an additional $10 trillion, or 13 percent, higher today. In other words, limited participation in global flows by many countries had a real cost to the world economy. For some individual countries, GDP would be more than 50 percent higher today”.
“Approximately 12 percent of the global goods trade is conducted via international e-commerce, with much of it driven by platforms such as Alibaba, Amazon, eBay, Flipkart, and Rakuten. Beyond e-commerce, digital platforms for both traditional employment and freelance assignments are beginning to create a more global labour market. Some 50 percent of the world’s traded services are already digitized”, the report goes on to say.
“Beyond e-commerce, digital platforms for both traditional employment and freelance assignments are beginning to create a more global labour market. Digitization also enables instantaneous exchanges of virtual goods. E-books, apps, online games, MP3 music files and streaming services, software, and cloud computing services can all be transmitted to customers anywhere in the world there is an Internet connection”, the report adds.
(Blic, 25.07.2017)
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