Hard times in the high-tech industry could turn around by late next year, at least in Asia, but a US economic slump and a war in Iraq would drive business down, information technology executives said yesterday.
Despite a "major IT recession" around the world, "we are very positive about the outlook in Asia," said Christian Morales, the Asia-Pacific general manager of Intel Corp, the leading maker of computer chips.
Tadashi Okamura, president of Tokyo-based electronics company Toshiba Corp, said that 2003 would be a key year for the industry, with important developments in infrastructure for broadband and broadcasting technology.
"Demand for this kind of infrastructure will increase so much," Okamura told reporters on the sidelines of the annual East Asia Economic Summit, organized by the World Economic Forum.
"For our industry, I expect 2003 will be better than 2002, but the first half of 2003 will be very difficult because the American economy will still be losing its power at that moment."
Okamura said a war in Iraq would hurt consumer confidence in the US, which accounts for about 30 percent of Toshiba's sales.
Morales told forum delegates that Asia was playing a major role in designing equipment for accessing and powering the Internet. Malaysia is among the countries where state-of-the-art software is being assembled and tested, he said.
William Amelio, Dell Computer Corp's Asia-Pacific president, said the company had moved some of its manufacturing facilities from the US to Asia because of a boom in the region's design capabilities.
"It's phenomenal -- the growth rate of technology and skills here," he said.
Dell recently enlarged operations in Malaysia and expanded a manufacturing plant in China.
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