IT improvements fuel price drops

As information technology has developed, consumer prices have dropped, the Bank of Korea said yesterday. While the share of the information technology industry in the economy has expanded, rapid developments in technology have also pulled down prices of information technology products. Korea’s information technology industry made up 6.2 percent of gross domestic product in 1996; the share grew to 17 percent in the first half of this year, the bank said. Meanwhile, the decrease in prices of information technology products has helped reduce overall consumer prices by an average of 0.3 percentage points in each of the last three years, the bank said. From 2000 to October 2003, mobile phones and laptop computers led the price decline. Cell phone prices fell by 56 percent, while laptop prices dropped 26 percent.