A 2002 Gartner survey found that 20 percent of all expenditures on IT is wasted – a finding that represents, on a global basis, an annual destruction of value totaling about US $ billion. A 2004 IBM survey of Fortune 1000 CIOs found that, on average, CIOs believe that 40 percent of all IT spending brought no return to their organizations.
There are still, therefore, downside risks to the outlook for economic activity in the euro area, although the current low level of interest rates should help to counterbalance these. Turning to price developments, according to Eurostat's flash estimate, annual HICP inflation was 2.2% in December 2002, unchanged from November 2002.