The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Singapore is setting up a new institute to teach students e-commerce technical and management skills. The school is scheduled to open early next year.
Those in favor of the institute hope it will help establish the city-state as a hub for e-commerce, which is expected to be worth 16 billion U.S. dollars worldwide in the next two years. Though promoters say e-commerce is full of promise, there are many concerns about the security of monetary transactions and other details.
Singapore is a wealthy city-state that has long been a shipping trade center for Asia and hopes to become a high-tech trading post on the Internet in the next century.
The government aggressively promotes computer literacy and Internet skills, and is trying to wire all of its homes, schools and other institutions into a high-speed computer network.
The number of Internet users in Singapore--which has a population of 2.3 million--is expected to reach 1.5 million by the year 2003. Singapore's National Computer Board has also set a target of having 20 percent of Singapore companies becoming e-commerce-enabled in the next two years.