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Bandar Seri Begawan – Brunei's Minister of
Communications, who led a delegation to India, concluded his five-day
working visit to Bangalore and New Delhi yesterday after making a courtesy
call on the Minister of State of the Ministry of Communications and
Information Technology of India, Dr Shakeel
Ahmed.
During the courtesy call, Pehin Dato Awang Hj Abu Bakar Apong conveyed special thanks and appreciation to the
Government of India for accepting and arranging Brunei Darussalam's working
visit to Bangalore and New Delhi. The minister also said that
the objectives of the visit have been successfully met.
Pehin Abu Bakar said the working
visit had been very beneficial and gave interesting experiences for the Brunei delegation. During the
five-day period, various ICT agencies were visited including the Software
Technology Park of India (STPI), International Technology Park Ltd (ITPL), Sobha Renaissance Centre in Bangalore, National Informatics Centre
(NIC) and National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASCOM)
in Delhi. The visits certainly gave the delegation an in depth
insight into the strength areas that India has to offer in the
communications and IT sector, particularly with respect to specific
technical and human resources aspects of implementing e-Government.
The minister then highlighted to the Indian minister of the areas
of interest which Brunei Darussalam wished to pursue with India following the visit which includes:
- To further learn India's successful stories and
business model in nurturing the development of ICT industries in particular
the local ICT companies.
- To look at India's successful public and private sector
partnership initiatives for example, on establishing technology parks, and
in the implementation of the e-Government programmes
and projects in Brunei Darussalam.
In this regard, the minister informed that the government has
pledged about Million for the e-Government programmes
in Brunei Darussalam. On that note, he invitedparticipation
from Indian local ICT companies in implementing e-Government projects for Brunei. He also shared with the
Indian minister the main incentives offered to foreign companies for
investing in Brunei, including the exemption from
income tax and a corporate holiday for 5 years, among others.
- To look at India's initiatives or programmes to develop ICT human resources and talent in
line with the ICT industry development of Brunei Darussalam.
- And to look at opportunities for Brunei to possibly make use of the
human resource development facilities available in India including e-learning and
conventional courses both academics and non-academics, particularly in
skills and competencies with industrial certification.
Pehin Abu Bakar also shared with
his counterpart some new non-ICT developments which his ministry had also
pursued during his working visit to India.
In efforts towards establishing and formalising
cooperation between the two countries not only in ICT industry but also
other industries, Brunei's Ministry of Communications of and India's Civil
Aviation ministry are in the process of enhancing air services agreement to
allow designated national airlines of both countries to fly and land in
main cities.
In this regard, Pehin Abu Bakar informed Dr Ahmed that the government of both
countries had just formalised an arrangement on
principle for which air travel connections between both countries will be
further improved. This will certainly open up gateways or windows for
further strengthening the Brunei-India relation in areas of aviation,
transportation and, equally important, in harnessing opportunities in the
communications and IT industry between both countries.
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