Haji Awang Alaihuddin bin POKDSL Dato Seri Utama Haji Awang Mohd Taha, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Communications spoke at the Brunei Darussalam-India Joint Working Group on Communication and Information Technology Meeting yesterday.
"Looking at the memorandum of understanding, the scope is vast and the opportunity is wide open for cooperation that can be explored and taken advantage of," he said.
Among the areas of cooperation are Human Resource Development for ICT education, computer system, computer hardware, software development and services, e-Commerce and e-Government, Internet application and so forth, he said.
"It is the role of the ministry to follow through and initiate further and coordinate with relevant agencies in Brunei Darussalam so that these agencies would be able to work together with their relevant counterparts from India in their own respective specialised area of expertise.
"I am pleased that the Prime Minister's Office is involved and taking a proactive role in using the opportunity to pave the way for cooperation especially in the area of e-Government in which India has been well ahead in its implementation. I believe that similar efforts could be explored by other agencies for business and citizen sectors", he added.
Mr Rakesh Singh, Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology of India, said, "The MoU lays the foundation of boosting boader economic cooperation between both countries especially in ICT where there is tremendous scope in both countries. There have been discussions of active interest in promoting cooperation of ICT in both countries."
On potential areas of cooperation, he said "About 150 ICT and training centres are operating in Brunei. We also understand that His Majesty's Government has allocated close to $500 to $600 million for over 200 IT projects for the country. And India can offer its technical capabilities for any areas of ICT and we are very ready to join hands in technical cooperation and human resource capacity building as well as any other areas of mutual interest," he said
"There were a few high level visits when the Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology of India visited Brunei in September 2006. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade visited in October 2006.
Highlighting some of India's advantages, the Additional Secretary, Department of Information Technology of India, said, "The software exports in India that stood at one million dollars in 1995 today stands at over 47 billion dollars which constitute 17 per cent of the total exports. Obviously, the level of economic activities has excellent spin offs in employment thereby raising income level.
"Despite the global economic downturn, the software sectors continued to register a growth of 17 per cent in the year 2009 while other sectors had fallen short. India has vast resources of high quality and creative engineering technological and management manpower. We have a number of specialised institutions like institute of technologies, institute of management and institution of science that are producing top level and globally competitive manpower.
"ICT has a crucial role to play around the world where it has the potential to reduce poverty, strengthen growth and connect people in places," he said.
The agendas discussed in the meeting were on the setting up of the Joint Working Group (JWG) and the strengthening of bilateral cooperation in matters pertaining to manpower development, expertise consultations, e-Government and ICT development in Brunei.
There were also presentations on the ICT industrial developments and the e-Government services by representatives from both countries.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): James Kon
Quelle/Source: Brunei Direct, 18.02.2010
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