Industry is to be given the chance to tell the government what support it wants if e-commerce is to thrive.

The UK's new e-envoy has pinpointed talking to industry as one of his priorities when he gets down to work.

Alex Allan says he wants to listen to businesses to find out which are the areas where not enough is being done to help them.

As e-envoy, he will publish monthly reports for the prime minister on his website and will launch a new online process of continuous consultation with the public and business.

Mr Allan set out his priorities in the job as he spoke on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He warned of the danger to businesses of being left behind if they refused to embrace the internet.

Rivals with websites would offer better, more efficient and cheaper services, he said.

Government goes online

He said he wanted to encourage the setting up of a framework, which the E-commerce Bill aims to do, addressing such issues as copyright and consumer privacy.

He said he would also oversee the government's own services going online.

Mr Allan said: "Increasingly, we will see people getting used to dealing electronically and we'll expect the same from the government."

The government has set itself the target of offering all its services on websites by 2008.

Mr Allan is a former senior official in John Major's office at Number 10 and was then high commissioner in Australia.