The Australian Government's Innovation Report

Knowledge Diffusion
Investment in ICT 8
The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is recognised as a significant driver of
economic growth and productivity improvements. In the 2006 scorecard, Australia’s level of investment in ICT
as a percentage of gross fixed capital formation is 22.9%, a decrease from the 2004 scorecard level of 24.7%.
Figure 13 shows, however, that Australia is ranked 4 th , and well above the OECD average.
FIGURE 13: Investment in ICT as a percentage of business sector gross fixed capital formation as a percentage difference
from the OECD average
80
Percentage difference from the OECD average
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
United States
Sweden
Finland
Australia
United Kingdom
Belgium
New Zealand
Denmark
Canada
Netherlands
France
Korea
Italy
Japan
Germany
Portugal
Austria
Norway
Spain
Greece
Ireland
Source: OECD. Data from 2003 or latest available year.
Internet Users
Another measure of the capacity for knowledge diffusion within a country is the number of internet users in
the population. In the 2006 scorecard, Australia has 704 internet users per one thousand of the population,
an increase over the 2004 and 2002 scorecards where Australia had 600 and 465 internet users per one
thousand of the population respectively. Figure 14 shows that Australia performs strongly in this area, ranking
4 th and significantly (33%) above the OECD average.
FIGURE 14: Internet users per 1 000 people compared to the OECD average
Percentage difference from the OECD average
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
Iceland
Sweden
Denmark
Australia
Norway
Korea
Japan
Finland
United States
Canada
New Zealand
Source: World Competitiveness Yearbook. Data from 2005.
Portugal
Swizterland
Netherlands
Austria
United Kingdom
Luzembourg
Germany
Belgium
Ireland
Italy
France
Czech Republic
Spain
Slovak Republic
Hungary
Poland
Greece
Turkey
Mexico
8
Statistical revisions since the publication of the earlier scorecards have made this indicator more robust. For the 2002 scorecard, data for only nine
countries were available while data for 18 countries were available for the 2004 scorecard. The 2006 scorecard incorporates data for 21 countries
for comparison and due to revisions the data for 21 countries are now available for the years corresponding to the 2002 and 2004 scorecards.
Interestingly, with the new data Australia held its 3rd ranking in the 2002 scorecard and actually improved its ranking from 6th to 3rd in the 2004
scorecard. This places the decrease of one position in its ranking that Australia experienced between the 2004 and 2006 scorecards into perspective.
136 Backing Australia’s Ability