Government agencies are planning a major push to help the country achieve "Smart Thailand" status, involving the widespread use of information technology and the adoption of international standards, to prepare Thailand for implementation of the Asean Economic Community in 2015.
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister Anudith Nakornthap said Smart Thailand would involve smart connected community networks, smart digital government services and smart collaborative business support.
He said the ministry expected to lay down information-technology infrastructure to cover about 80 or 85 per cent of the country within the next four years. E-government services will be developed and provided at the same time.
He did not disclose how much the government expected to spend in laying down the ICT infrastructure.
He said the ministry aimed also to establish the use of smart ID cards as personal identification for accessing hospital services and e-government services, as well as in e-business transactions.
It is planning to use the Universal Service Fund, which is sponsored by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) in order to provide equal access to IT services in remote areas of the country, and to ask service providers to give free Wi-Fi services to communities as a form of corporate social responsibility.
E-Government Agency (EGA) director Sak Segkhonthod said his agency was in the course of developing an information-technology infrastructure to support Smart Thailand. This included an integrated government information network (GIN) in both metropolitan and local communities "so as to reduce the last digital mile and reduce the gap of access to information via digital devices."
The EGA is now planning to provide cloud-computing services, including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), and software-as-a-service (SaaS) to government agencies around the country. This will help them to connect without barriers from communication networks and increase the productivity of e-government services to all Thai people.
Sak said his agency had created a road map and back-office system to support e-government services. It will provide e-document management workflow in order to allow government agencies to exchange information and collaborate on a network basis before the end of this year.
"I think that within the next four years, Thailand must be ready to provide e-government services and an e-government back office so that it will be competitive when it enters the Asean Economic Community, and we will be able to increase the country's productivity," Sak said.
Electronic Transaction Development Agency (ETDA) executive director Surangkana Wayuparb said her agency would adopt various measures to support the Smart Thailand push, such as supporting the government's policies to enhance Thailand's competitiveness. These will include developing standards for e-commerce transactions and information-security infrastructure, creating confidence among businesses and their customers by issuing e-commerce guidelines and advising on best practices in order to create confidence in e-transactions. These measures, in turn, will become a mechanism for increasing e-commerce and e-business transactions.
She said her agency would create opportunities for Thai people and business organisations to conduct business online before the country entered the Asean Economic Community in 2015. As a result, businesses will be able to change from analog to fully digital transactions within the next three years.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Jirapan Boonnoon
Quelle/Source: The Nation, 10.09.2011
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