Brussels, 26/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - Over the next few years, most of the old EU member states risk lagging far behind their neighbours in the East when it comes to investment in new information technology, according to a recent IDC study on behalf of Microsoft Corporation. Projections show that IT spending is expected to grow by 12.8% annually in Eastern Europe until 2011, compared with only 5.7% in Western Europe, according to the IDC study published on 18 October 2007. It shows that the Danish IT industry is expected to grow by 5.3% between 2006 and 2011, whereas IT growth in Bulgaria is expected to reach 14.5% over the same period. In a press release, Jan Muehlfelt, Chairman Europe of Microsoft Corporation, said: 'This study convincingly shows that 'old Europe' has a problem. If we cannot boost innovation investments and growth, we will soon be overtaken by other global actors'. The IT sector in the EU is expected to create a million new jobs from 2006-2011. The total number of jobs in IT in the EU at the moment is 7.8 million, 40% of them generated by the Microsoft ecosystem. (B.C.)