Brunei Seeks India's IT Expertise
By Kartika Rahman

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. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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