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MISTICA: Indonesia wants Japan to explain IT aid pledge

From: Daniel Pimienta ([email protected])
Date: Wed Mar 28 2001 - 13:06:19 AST

----- Original Message -----
From: "Newsmaster" <[email protected]>
To: "Datacom" <[email protected]>

> Indonesia wants Japan to explain IT aid pledge
>
> JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia is seeking an explanation from the Japanese
> government about its pledge to provide aid to developing countries to
> narrow the information and technology (IT) gap.
>
> Indonesian Telecommunications Society chairman Soekarno Abdulrachman
> said on Thursday that although Japan promised to provide US$15 billion
> for IT projects in developing countries during the Group of Eight (G-8)
> summit in Okinawa last year, the terms for securing the funding remained
> unknown.
>
> "So far Japan is the only industrialized country to have promised help,
> but we still do not know the terms and conditions that have been set to
> receive this help," he said during a break in a media conference here on
> the digital divide.
>
> Soekarno said for Indonesia to surmount the digital divide would require
> affordable telecommunications infrastructure such as personal computers
> in rural areas. But he acknowledged funding was a major obstacle to
> achieving this.
>
> One of the agreements reached at the G-8 summit in July last year was to
> narrow the IT gap between rich and poor countries by fostering the
> spread of computer and telecommunications technology.
>
> The leaders of the eight industrialized countries issued an IT charter
> that vowed to help developing countries reap the benefits of the
> Internet. They also established a task force that will report back with
> ideas on how to achieve this goal at this year's G-8 summit in Genoa,
> Italy.
>
> At the media conference on Thursday, Moch. Slamet Hidayat of the
> Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the upcoming meeting of the G-15
> developing countries in Jakarta on May 25 was crucial to the future
> development of IT in these countries.
>
> "At the summit, we hope there will be the political will at the level of
> the heads of state to increase awareness of the importance of the
> information and communications technology revolution," he said.
>
> Soekarno said he hoped that what was proposed at the G-8 meeting would
> be expanded on during the G-15 summit.
>
> "We hope IT will not only be available to high-end customers, but also
> those in isolated areas," he said.
>
> The G-15 summit will coincide with the Indonesian International
> Telecommunications, Media and Information Technology conference, which
> will showcase the latest technology available in Indonesia.
>
> Hillman M. Sulaiman, the head of the IT department at the Indonesian
> Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the conference also would exhibit
> the telecommunications and Internet kiosks that have sprung up across
> Indonesia.
>
> "We have 187,000 telephone kiosks and 2,000 Internet kiosks across the
> country. We are hoping for a business collaboration to further develop
> these kiosks and help narrow the digital divide in Indonesia," he said.
> (tnt)
>
>
> [Datacom] This is an invitation to partnership for implementation of a
> national gateway and telecenter network. The following link indicates
> interest of respective organizations to indulge partnership
> http://www13.brinkster.com/warnet2000/partners.htm

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