Internet impacting eco**mic development across Africa: Report

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Bangkok, **v 21 (IANS) The use of Internet is rising in Africa and is having a "transformative effect" on the continent's development and could add $300 billion a year to its gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025, says global consulting firm McKinsey. "Lions go Digital: The Internet's transformative potential in Africa", a new report by McKinsey & Company, surveys the progress of the Internet in 14 eco**mies that make up 90 percent of Africa's GDP: Angola, Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. According to the report, out of Africa's one billion population, only 16 percent are online -- 167 million use the Internet and 52 million are on Facebook -- but that figure is rising rapidly thanks to the expansion of mobile networks and as the cost of Internet-capable devices continues to drop. "Mobile telephony has already had an outsized effect in Africa as it connected people who previously had little or ** access to telecommunications due to the scarcity of fixed-line infrastructure." The report, released at the ongoing ITU World Telecom 2013 Summit here, says that the Internet is likely to take hold on a much larger scale in the coming decade.

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