The Internet has become a main indicator of economic development

Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 6

By Aygun Badalova -Trend:

Over the last few years the Internet has demonstrated a tendency for rapid development across the world. Today it is unimaginable for a business to attempt to develop without the Internet. Moreover, the Internet has progressively entered into the daily lives of ordinary people.

The Internet has made people's lives easier. You can read books, listen to music and watch movies you like online without going to special stores and buying CDs, you can organize your leisure by booking tickets to the cinema or airline tickets without leaving home. You can shop on-line using without ever dropping...

In other words Internet allows us to save time and use it effectively.

Today the Internet has become one of the main indicators of the economic development of a country, and an important index of population's living standards.

In the most developed countries in the world the rate of Internet penetration is typically very high.

Interesting data can be found on worldinternetstats.com, which backs up the claim that good Internet penetration means a more prosperous society.

North America is the leader in Internet penetration - 78.6 percent of the population are Internet users. Europe this figure amounts to 63.2 percent.

In Europe the leadership in the rate of Internet penetration belongs to Monaco where 100 percent of population use the Internet. Next comes Iceland with 97.1 percent of penetration and Norway with 96.9 percent. It should be noted that all these countries have a quite high rate of economic development. For example, Iceland and Denmark are in the list of the most developed countries in the world, while living standards in Monaco are very high.

The lowest rate of internet users is observed in Africa with 15.6 percent of penetration.

Countries such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Bangladesh have low rates of Internet penetration with five, 4.4 and five percent respectively. These countries belong to the group of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) with the rate of GDP per capita less than 750 dollars.

Meanwhile, there are some countries, mainly Arab countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, with stable economies, and quite high living standards, where Internet access is restricted due to political reasons and/or cultural or religious rea sons.

Also in countries with large rural areas Internet penetration is a little lower.

A quick glance at the list of countries and Internet usage is all that is needed to understand the socio-economic standing without having to delve into piles of charts, facts and figures.

The following graph shows statistics of Internet usage in some countries with high penetration (source: worldinternetstats.com, for June, 2012)