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Laying the ICT
infra of Brunei Courtesy of Sunday By
Helena M Mahathir
Thus, the
Brunei Government has allocated a total of B$526 million or almost 7.2% of
the total development budget under the 8th National Development Plan
(2001-2005) to provide basic IT infrastructure. "This
serves as a step towards the establishment of modern and sophisticated IT
facilities and service networks," said the Minister of Communications,
Pehin Orang Kaya Seri Kerna Dato Seri Setia Hj Awg Abu Bakar bin Hj Apong,
during the official launch of Microsoft Market Development Partner (MDP) at
the Royal Berkshire Hall in Jerudong Park Country Club yesterday. With the
placing of a fully advanced digital network infrastructure - the Next
Generation Networks, or NGN - in Brunei Darussalam, Pehin Dato Haji Awang Abu
Bakar hopes to see more new developments in ICT in the next 5 years with the
9th National Development Plan 2006-2010 coming into place, "particularly
in our efforts to develop the e-business sector in the country". "The
second success factor for e-business development is for an enabling
environment to be in place. This has also been highlighted in the recent
NASIS (National Summit on Information Society) where among the issues that
are necessary for e-business to strive include privacy protection, consumer
trust, protection of intellectual property rights and creating a trustworthy,
transparent, non-discriminatory legal, regulatory and policy
environment," Pehin Dato Haji Awang Abu Bakar said. Pehin
Dato Haji Awang Abu Bakar went on to say that Content Development is another key
success factor towards national e-business development, whereby in most parts
of the world, content industries, software, music, computer games,
broadcasting and the like represent powerful examples of the shift from the
manufacture of physical items to the manufacture of high value intangibles.
"I believe these are becoming the drivers of the ICT software and
e-business industry," Pehin Dato Haji Awang Abu Bakar said. The
fourth critical success factor underlined by the Minister of Communications
is the ICT-skilled manpower or ICT talent. "Skills are becoming
important for us all. This is recognized in the Strategy Paper recommended by
NASIS in which capacity building of human resources through education and
training are all very essential not only in building e-business capable firms
but to the overall society," the minister stressed. "In
short, it is paramount in fuelling an e-literate community of people who will
become competitive and highly demanded in the local and global market,"
he added. With a
current recorded statistics of about 10 ICT training centers and less than
200 ICT local companies in the country, Pehin Dato Haji Awang Abu Bakar
expressed his hope that better figures are achieved in the next few years. Thus he
urged local companies and their foreign partners to give serious attention to
human capacity building in ICT by engaging and utilizing local talents and
graduates, and develop their potential to the fullest. "In this way you
will also be able to provide employment opportunities to the locals,"
Pehin Dato Haji Awang Abu Bakar said. This was
followed by the signing of contracts between MDP (B) Sdn Bhd and Microsoft,
whereby MDP is the Authorized Market Development Partner of Microsoft in the
Sultanate. Signing on behalf of MDP (B) Sdn Bhd was its Managing Director,
Pengiran Anak Haji Muhd Basheer bin Pengiran Indera Mahkota Pengiran Anak
(Dr.) Kemaludin (Al-Haj), whereby Microsoft was represented by Mr Faycal
Bouchlaghem, General Manager - New Markets,
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