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Director of the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre Thaweesak Koanantakool provides up-to-date information about the progress of many IT projects carried out to support the IT-2000 plan and the economic recovery of the nation with long-term sustainability.
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Getting ready for the next millennium
Thaweesak Koanantakool
This year in Thailand is likely to be the year of small and mediumenterprises (SMEs), of the liberalisation of telecommunications and electronic commerce (Ecommerce). These are the buzzwords for the recovery of the real economic sector.
The actual key activity to rebuilding our economy is believed to be industrial restructuring by increasing the local values in all our exported goods.
Having gone through over 20 months of economic crisis, Thailand has learned many lessons. Thailand can no longer be competitive through low-cost labour nor can it profit through the consumption of non-renewable natural resources.
We need to be less dependent on foreign parties in marketing, and financing; we will have to use more local content (including more local intellectual property), efficient management systems and lower financing cost.
Thailand must prepare its human resources to be ready when the economy has come back in order to be competitive in the long run.
Information Technology is definitely one fundamental factor for better management, concurrent engineering for product development, just-in-time supply chains, automated quality-controlled production, and human resource development.
In addition, software has been clearly emphasised as a possible local industry and with good potential as an export earner, provided that intellectual property rights (IPR) are better recognised in Thailand.
Better use of software and information systems, and electronic government are also taking shape through many initiatives of the National Information Technology Committee (NITC)
The current needs are in line with the "three pillars" of IT-2000, the IT master plan of Thailand which calls for the better telecommunication and networking infrastructure, the need to improve intellectual skills of workers and good governance.
IT-2000
IT-2000 is Thailand's national IT plan for a sustainable economy. It consists of three "pillars" which are the foundations for the development. The plan has been implemented in several related activities and projects by many organisations.
The first pillar of IT-2000: Better telecommunications infrastructure. Deregulation of telecommunication and privatisation of the Telephone Organisation of Thailand (TOT) and the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) are the most highlighted issues.
The process has been under domestic pressure of the new constitution (Section 40) and international pressure from the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In addition, the constitution (Section 78) also requires that a universal access to information infrastructure must be provided by the state to all areas of the country.
In the second pillar, human resource development and education are to be improved. Even under the economic crisis, Thailand's letter of intent to the IMF (August 1997) stated that "Education expenditure, together with health and essential infrastructure projects, is to be intact".
There are several IT projects which address human resource development: the SchoolNet project, IT-for-Education field trials in Mae Hong Son and Phuket provinces, Secondary School Resource Centre Project and the Lighthouse project.
The software industry of Thailand is also being developed through a series of measures which will enhance the capability levels software human resources.
The third pillar is on good governance, the most crucial factor necessary for the sustainable development of Thailand through less corruption and better services to the citizen. There are several on-going IT and non-IT activities relevant to this issue: the Government Information Technology Service (GITS) and government Chief Information Officer (CIO) programs. The CIOs were appointed with two initial main tasks: completion of IT Master Plan of their agencies and fixing the agency's Y2K (year 2000) problems.
Measures to make government more transparent and less corrupt are also strengthened through the Official Information Act (to enhance government transparency) and the establishment of the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC).
The National Information Technology Committee and Nectec
The National Information Technology Committee (NITC) was established in 1992 to oversee the policy aspects of information technology development and deployment in Thailand.
It now has 18 subcommittees steering various IT developments, including three that directly affect the electronic commerce development: the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) subcommittee, six IT-law subcommittees, Y2K-law subcommittee and the Electronic Commerce Task Force which is now part the national e-commerce policy committee.
NITC is currently chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Science, Technology and Environment, Mr Suvit Khunkitti. The NITC Secretariat office (ITS) is operated as part of the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (Nectec).
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| Justice Minister Suvit Khunkitti |
Nectec was established in 1987 to provide research funding and to carry out research and development in the electronics and computer-related areas. Nectec operates 12 laboratories, two service units and two subsidiary companies.
Nectec's labs are specialised in various technologies such as telecommunications, networking, software, linguistics and knowledge science, automatic systems, electro-optics and microelectronics. Service units are set up to strengthen SMEs in designing and testing new products using printed-circuit board (PCB) design/production service as well as product testing for electromagnetic interference/compatibility (EMI/EMC).
In 1992, Nectec was assigned by the government to perform the role of NITC secretariat, in addition to its main role of R&D promotion and implementation. R&D programs of Nectec are now geared to serve the local electronic and computer industries.
The 1999 flagship projects of Nectec are on wireless local-loop development with application on personal cordless phone, spatial database and geographical information systems and computer numerical control machine tools. These projects are closely related to high-value import replacement.
Through the operating units within Nectec, many NITC-originated projects can be implemented smoothly through internal collaboration.
Telecommunication Deregulation Liberalisation of telecommunication is required under Thailand's commitment to the World Trade Organisation. The liberalisation plans were made and modified through the past three governments using various models. "National Communication Commission": was originally expected to be the regulatory body.
After the introduction of the new constitution in October, 1997, a regulatory body is required to take care of radio frequency spectrum management. It was proposed that "National Broadcasting Commission" would be appointed to handle frequency spectrum management. This was to be separated from the National Communication Commission.
On April 7, 1999, the House of Representatives unanimously approved the frequency management bill in its first reading. It is likely that there will be a single regulatory body to look after both the telecommunication services and the radio frequency spectrum management. The bill proposed a committee of 15 persons from non-political knowledgable individuals.
Under the new bill, both TOT and CAT will be transformed into a non-monopolistic telecommunication operators just like many of their "concessioned companies" which currently must operate under TOT and CAT.
Through a separate "Telecommunication Bill" drafted by the Prime Minister's advisory group, all telecommunication services will be liberalised in progressive steps. Services are classified into five classes:
- passive construction type infrastructure,
- backbone multimedia transmission service,
- value-added services such as Internet or audiotex,
- information service such as web sites or database service, and
- other services.
The bill emphasises consumer protection, fair competition and fair pricing, service licensing and stipulation of penalty.
The telecom bill draft proposed that the regulatory body may issue unlimited licenses for Internet and Audiotex services as from January 1, 2000.
Foreign ownership of ISPs shall not exceed 40% initially, but increased to 75% or less as from January 1, 2006. Opening a web site or online information services requires only official registration, no licence is required.
Transformation of telecommunication operators is taking place at government-owned enterprises like TOT and CAT. There has been a substantial restructuring in many private telecommunication companies through foreign investment.
Y2K
The millennium bug is viewed by the government as being "a lot more than just a technical problem". Through NITC initiatives, the Thai government has escalated its responsibilities in steps. In 1997, Nectec started several awareness creation programmes.
Around February 1998, the Cabinet was given full awareness of the impacts of Y2K on virtually every computer, on every business system and to the country's economy if our critical systems could not guarantee business continuity into the year 2000.
In April 1998, the first cabinet resolution on Y2K was announced to every government ministry . In this resolution, every ministry was to set up its own Y2K taskforce to manage ministerial and departmental level Y2K programmes in their agencies. The resolution also guided all government agencies for the source of government budget to do so.
In June 1998, an additional executive order took place. The Cabinet appointed a Y2K National Coordination Committee to handle all coordination for Y2K actions in Thailand.
Nectec was appointed as the secretariat office. Nectec subsequently set up the Y2K Center <http://y2k.nectec.or.th> to assist the committee to coordinate the planning, reporting and coordination of government Y2K remedy process.
The agencies are also expected to track the progress of the Y2K work in the private sector under their jurisdiction.
In July 1998, the National Coordination Committee set up a special subcommittee called "the Super-critical Organisation Subcommittee" (SOS) to take special care of the most important systems which may affect the whole country (ie.being "super-critical"). The members of this subcommittee consist of 31 organisations in four major groups:
- power/energy organisations,
- telecommunications/transport organisations,
- financial/insurance and securities organisations, and
- other organisations which deal with public safety, social order, defense, health.
This SOS subcommittee is responsible of successful implementation of its own member organisation's Y2K programme by the end of March 1999, with full testing and implementation to be completed by end of June 1999.
So far, the progress of these organisations has been very satisfactory. The chairman of Y2K National Coordination Committee has also made many formal inspection of these organisations. As of April 1999, ten organisations have been inspected.
I estimate the total budget for fixing the Y2K problem in Thailand up to 1999 to be around 20 billion baht. The government agencies spend about 1.6 billion baht and government enterprises spend more than 4 billion baht. The remaining amount is in the private sector. The figure of about 500 million baht for a large private sector company is quite common.
The results of recent inspection trips and more availability of publications of Thailand's Y2K programme in English raised Thailand's readiness's level from a four to level three by Gartner Group of USA. It is expected that more English language reports on Y2K will be made more available on the web. (Continued)
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