*EPF506 03/03/00
Text: Clinton on High Technology Competitiveness
(Cites need for open global markets) (520)

President Clinton has outlined his agenda for keeping the United States in the vanguard of global high technology competitiveness.

The lead initiative on the president's agenda deals with expanding foreign markets for U.S. high technology goods, cracking down on foreign piracy and loosening export controls on computers and telecommunications equipment, according to a White House statement March 3.

The global telecommunications services market is worth $1,000,000 million, the statement said.

Following are terms and acronyms used in the text:

-- trillion: 1,000,000 million.

-- billion: 1,000 million.

-- e-commerce: electronic commerce.

Following is the text of the White House statement:

(begin text)

A STRONG RECORD OF GROWING THE DIGITAL ECONOMY AND CREATING DIGITAL OPPORTUNITY

March 3, 2000

President Clinton and Vice President Gore have worked hard to grow the digital economy and to help create opportunity for more Americans in the information age.

To strengthen America's high-tech competitiveness and promote e-commerce and the Internet, the Administration has:

-- Opened up foreign markets for high-tech goods, cracked down on foreign piracy and liberalized export controls on computers and telecommunications equipment. This includes the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), which will eventually eliminate tariffs on $600 billion worth of goods, and the World Trade Organization's Basic Telecommunications Agreement, which will promote competition and privatization in a global telecommunications services market worth $1 trillion.

-- Extended the Research and Experimentation tax credit, including a 5-year extension last year, the longest extension ever.

-- Passed the first comprehensive telecommunications reform legislation in over sixty years in order to lower prices, increase customer choice, and speed the deployment of high-speed networks.

-- Submitted budgets containing steadily increasing investments in research and development, helping to develop the ideas that will fuel productivity growth for decades to come.

-- Promoted a market-led approach on e-commerce that relies on self-regulation whenever possible.

To help close the digital divide, President Clinton and Vice President Gore have set a national goal of ensuring that every child is technologically literate, with Internet access, modern computers, trained teachers, and high-quality educational software. As a result of the initiative:

-- The number of classrooms connected to the Internet has increased from 4 percent in 1994 to 63 percent in 1999, while the number of schools connected to the Internet has increased from 35 percent to 95 percent during the same period.

-- The "e-rate", part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, is providing $2.25 billion (in the form of 20 percent-90 percent discounts) to connect schools and libraries to the Internet, with the deepest discounts going to the poorest schools. The e-rate alone has provided Internet access for children in more than 1 million classrooms.

-- Our total investment in educational technology at the federal level (including the e-rate) has increased from $23 million in 1993 to over $3 billion today.

-- Grants supported by the Department of Education are training 400,000 new teachers to use technology effectively in the classroom.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: usinfo.state.gov)
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