New business opportunities, says Murdoch

New business owners in poor countries are going to drive an “absolute explosion” of wealth and business opportunities, says entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch at a meeting of News shareholders in Adelaide yesterday.

And News and the company’s latest purchase, Dow Jones, will surf this new wave of economic prosperity which will lead to a growing appetite for financial products, he says.

Murdoch says the emergence from poverty of people in China, India, the Middle East and Africa would create this explosion of opportunity.

“Those people who have started businesses there are going to have to have – as part of their essential toolkit – up to the minute information about everything happening in their industry, anywhere in the world.”

He says “digital is the great revolution that we are facing.” And added that while newspapers online content was not free, that would change. “We are seeing just an explosion of business… the fact is the world as we know it 10 years ago or maybe less had about half the population engaged in its economy. Another three billion in the Middle East, India, China, South East Asia and Africa were left out. Now somewhere between 50 million and 100 million per year are joining the world economy.

Murdoch says News will focus on the internet and the development of Dow Jones over the next 12 months. The other growth area is its investment in MySpace. “I think we’ll see more social networks, probably smaller than us,” he says. “It’s a way to find new friends and people of similar interests. It’s almost a new way of life.”

For more on new business opportunities from changing demographics – see our story on Women closing the gap .