New Sipa chief sets expansion goals
The new director of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) aims to boost the value of software exports to Bt5 billion by the end of next year, and to accelerate growth of the domestic market beyond the level forecast for the industry.
Trairat Chatkaew said the direction of the agency under his term would be to strengthen Thailand’s software industry to meet the challenges of the single market under the Asean Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.
This will be done via the agency’s full range of support, with the aim of protecting the local market as well expanding the opportunities for Thai software business.
For the domestic market, the agency plans to accelerate local software adoption among customers in both the government and private sectors.
The director said that according to International Data Corp, without additional support and acceleration the software industry in Thailand could be expected to continue to grow at about 8 per cent a year.
It is, therefore, his intention that with Sipa’s help, the sector can exceed this level of domestic growth.
Growth must in essence come from local software business, Trairat said, adding that while imported software would continue to expand, the proportion of local software should increase from the current level of between 25 and 30 per cent.
Sipa plans to work with three ministries – the Information and Communications Technology Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the Education Ministry – to create market opportunities for local software business.
The association is working with the Interior Ministry in the Smart Province scheme, which was kicked off in Nakhon Nayok.
The project aims to introduce 50 local software systems, with Sipa’s role being to encourage the use of Thai programs.
Sipa will approach the Education Ministry about adopting the Digital Education Framework, former known as the “edu-tablet store”. Sipa will provide support through the E-Learning Association of Thailand.
“This framework is set to be the standard and platform for digital content for the education sector, to be delivered and the courseware managed across different types of device, not only tablets,” Trairat said.
Sipa will also work with the ICT Ministry and the E-Government Agency to promote the use of Thai software in all organisations under the ministry’s umbrella. Sipa will facilitate the provision of local software, while the E-Government Agency is to provide the cloud platform.
On the export front, Sipa plans to promote Thai software in the upcoming AEC single market. The initial aim is to increase annual exports to Bt5 billion by the end of 2013. This excludes embedded software, exports of which are worth Bt4 billion a year.
Currently, overseas sales of Thai software are worth about Bt3 billion.
Apart from boosting the export value of software, Trairat said Sipa also planned to develop another 2,000 IT professionals with multi-disciplinary skills covering the domain business process, technology and programming.
Initially, the association aims to promote Thai software to support six high-potential sectors: logistics, healthcare, tourism, education, food and agriculture, and jewellery.
Trairat added that the ICT minister had assigned Sipa to concentrate on market creation, IT human-resource development and the promotion of a standard for Thai software.
