Digital Economy Act draft 'by year-end'
Deputy Prime Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula expects the draft of the Digital Economy Act to be proposed to the National Legislative Assembly by the end of the year, after it gained widespread support from experts on the issue and key government figures
The digital economy is one of his core tasks to develop the economy in the long term.
Pridiyathorn said the first draft was finished three weeks ago and was drawn up by the Council of State, the legal advisory agency to the government.
If the final draft of the Act were passed by the NLA before the year’s end, his team would have a year to draw the strategic plan, he said.
“The digital economy is what challenges me most as I’m not good at it,” he said, adding that after many key people in the government were briefed by experts on the matter, all knew there would be something new in that [to develop the country],” he said.
When its was decided the digital economy plan would be taken to the next stage, Pridiyathorn will propose it to Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha, chairman of the committee that would be responsible for drawing up the plan.
Pridiyathorn said there would be six policies under the Act – empowering the ICT Ministry, establishing national broadband, increasing the legal intensity to fight hackers, developing software and hardware, and draw up a national action plan to support the private sector.
He added that last policy was the hardest as the government would need to gather ideas from the private sector to determine what support they needed.
“We need to know what they really demand for,” he said.
In regards to developing software to support the move, he said Thailand needed to integrate all independent bodies to develop supporting software.
