The Asia-Pacific bio-IT market will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 55 percent to reach 3.39 billion US dollars by 2006, according to preliminary data from IDC's research and advisory service Friday.
IDC, the foremost global market intelligence and advisory firm, estimates that 50 billion US dollars will be injected into the Asia-Pacific life science markets from both public and private sources over the next few years.
The race is clearly on among the Asia-Pacific countries and regions, as they seek to position themselves as genuine global bio-environment. Major focus is being centered on gene therapy, agri-sciences, bio-informatics and so on.
IDC notices that life sciences top the agenda for many Asian economies. The South Korean government is aiming to join the world's top seven biotechnology powers by 2010; Taiwan is ear-marking 3percent of GDP for life science development; and Singapore wants 20,000 scientists to be based there by 2005.
Hong Kong is also expected to raise its profile in the biotech sector, in addition to providing a vehicle for the internationalization of biotech products of the Chinese mainland, according to IDC.
(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2002)
