ICT minister hopeful country will be Asean digital hub within three years

The government has promoted the “digital economy” policy, which will see state |ICT agencies launching |flagship projects over the |next three months. It wants |the use of technology to increase productivity for all Thai industries and enhance government services to private companies. 

He made these points at a seminar on the economy, including digital aspects, hosted by the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday. 

He added that the government would support Thai companies and push Thailand to be the digital hub of Asean to attract content providers, Google and Facebook to set up servers here. 

He said state ICT agencies would focus on investing| in infrastructure including undersea cables and share them with private companies. 

Teerarat Pantarasutra, managing director of Symphony Communication, said the company would support the government’s digital-economy plan with its nationwide optical-fibre network. The government should support the creation of more new international Internet gateways to serve rising demand for data communications. 

He said he expected that by the end of next year, there could be 98 million subscribers to fourth-generation technology, since some people have more than one SIM card. The next seven to 10 years will be a golden era for ICT thanks to 4G and broadband since Thais more and more consume broadband data communication.

However, this year the national economy is still not good, which will affect ICT companies, but the digital-economy policy and government plan to inject money into the economy could help prop up economic growth.

Sukit Udomsirikul, managing director of Maybank Kim Eng (Thailand), said the digital economy should create new employment and further the boom of e-commerce. ICT |can help more people in rural areas access more information without going through middlemen.