Brunei Ruler Pleased With Internet Progress

Bangkok - The APEC leaders' meeting continued yesterday morning with the second session of the leaders retreat.

The retreat was held at the Ananta Samakhorn Throne Hall. On arrival, His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra greeted the Sultan.

The discussion at the second and the final retreat session focused on the partnership for the future and counter terrorism. His Majesty started the discussion in this session by stressing the importance of the information and communication technology or ICT.

His Majesty recalled that when leaders met in 2000, they agreed to provide Intenet Access to all by 2010. His Majesty was pleased to see some outstanding progress in this area. His Majesty stated that it would be a tremendous progress if APEC could triple the number if Internet users by 2005.

His Majesty further stated as far as Brunei is concerned, it was facing a whole set of new challenges. Over the past two years, the number of the population that had access to the internet had doubled.

The on going projects were encouraging, which included e-government, e-learning and other ways to provide for the rural areas. His Majesty noted that as with other technology, the internet was continuously evolving. In addition, governments, businesses, schools and the ordinary citizens were always seeking more sophisticated access and this provided a dilemma as to the best technology required.

His Majesty then stressed the critical role of human capacity building in reaching these ICT goals. His Majesty emphasised that it was absolutely essential today for people to have some basic skills to cope with new technologies.

This was where His Majesty felt that a closely focused and comprehensive ICT training and education programme would bring about these technical skills to the people as well as help them in their daily needs.

This requires governments, the business sectors and education and training institutions to work very closely together. His Majesty further suggested that the more developed members of APEC, who were well ahead of the rest in ICT, could impart their experiences on how best to approach this issue.

Meanwhile, following the retreat, His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei joined the other APEC economic leaders to a working luncheon where they continued their discussions. One issue that was predominantly discussed was the issue of counter-terrorism.

His Majesty together with the other APEC economic leaders then attended the reading of the leader's declaration by the chair of this year's Apec Economic Leaders Meeting (AELM), His Excellency Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

In their declaration, the 21 APEC leaders focused on port security, terrorist finance and sharing of travel records as further means to counter terrorism. It also described trans-national terrorism and weapons of mass destruction as a direct and profound challenge to the Asia Pacific vision of free and prosperous economies.

An energy security initiative covering oil data the protection of sea-lanes was also established as well as the creation of a regional trade and financial security fund to counter terrorism, with a special focus on port security and money laundering. The declaration ended with the hopes of the APEC members that the Korean peninsula be a nuclear-free zone.

On economic matters, the leaders agreed to re-energize multi-lateral trade talks which stalled in Mexico last month and said flexibility and the political will were urgently needed to move trade negotiations towards a successful conclusion for all.

They also agreed to work towards the abolition of all forms of agricultural export subsidies, unjustifiable export prohibitions and restrictions, which were the central causes for the collapse in Cancun.

The leaders reaffirmed the primacy of the multi-lateral trading system and agreed that the Doha round of talks under the World Trade Organization was vital for member nations' prosperity. -- Courtesy of Radio Television Brunei 

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