High-level policy dialogue: South-South sharing of policy experiences for digital transformation

High-level policy dialogue: South-South sharing of policy experiences for digital transformation

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uh tell me when it's okay to stop is it okay to start are we okay one minute please sure asks can you stop sharing please we will start the new session is open thank you good morning everybody all the participants and all the viewers are viewing now as live now in facebook and live stream my name is anastasia nesbitalova i'm head of a macroeconomic and development policies unit here at anchored in geneva and i'm delighted to be sharing and moderating this event today it's a high profile conversation between various distinguished speakers on a very topical issue of digital transformation for development let me extend very well welcome to all the participants and our distinguished panelists there's been a slight change to the composition of the panel because his excellence the minister um of indonesia is still in parliamentary debate and we are delighted to be joined by her excellency mrs amelia um um sorry mrs amelia i didn't engage who is the deputy minister of economic and national development planning of indonesia um other panelists are his excellence mr namal rajya paska who is a state minister for digital technology and enterprise development of sri lanka and his excellent sri rajeev chad chad rasenka minister of state in the ministry of electronics and um information technology in india this pre-event is a pre-session to answers 15 it's been organized by unit of economic cooperation and integration among developing countries also known as the south south unit here at anchored in gds in partnership with icta sri lanka and indef indonesia our main objective today is to share successful digital transformation and policy experiences between countries and to enable dialogue on how to constructively go forward i am now very pleased to invite our acting secretary general mr um mrs durant to give welcome and introductory remarks to the panel after which we will hear from ministers directly and there will be a q a session isabel thank you anastasia and good morning everyone i'm really happy to be with you and i would like to extend a warm welcome to our distinguished panel and all participants we are really delighted to have this webinar as was just mentioned to share good interesting experience uh on soul source level so we know all that covet 19 has triggered a game-changing moment in which businesses and consumers have increasingly gone digital but the pandemic has also exposed glaring disparities between the haves and the have-nots with almost half of the world still offline according to itu in developed countries 87 of the population has internet access while in developing countries this number stands at only 44 percent and in many of the post countries that number is less than 10 percent this is a real danger that those without internet access or without digital literacy are of course left further behind so in addition the digital divide is not gender neutral and this gap is likely widening although many women entrepreneurs have demonstrated their ability to start maintain or develop digital activities in the critical period the gap is nevertheless important despite the uneven access a lot of digital activities in developing world have offered solution to the disruptions related to the lockdown this has to be the case in various fields such as linking smallholder farmers to more lucrative formal urban commercial markets or linking directly consumers and producers countries with strong digital infrastructure have been able to manage the crisis differently and benefit from it this brings to the forefront the urgency of digital transformation developing countries need to take advantage of the new technological providing to create economies that could offer the people better paid jobs to make technology a force for goods and sustainable development for all countries we at unk argue that equity should be the moral compass guiding innovation but equitable outcomes are only possible with the right politics policy choice and governments from governments and technologists and the the extent to which inclusive innovation approach are adopted digital transformation can provide opportunities to countries not just to recover faster but to recover differently from the pandemic and doing so will involve going beyond building connectivity even if of course it's key especially in remote areas there is also a need to build broadband infrastructure data infrastructure software infrastructure digital literacy at all levels citizens businesses even public authorities research and development but also interminatorial coordination of action and reform in the field of digitalization demand and supply side constraints need to be addressed uncat has been providing research advocacy and technical support on these issues to many countries or publications and technical assistance have highlighted the implications of rising digitalization for development at national level for national digital transformation policies we have examined the related challenges for developing and least developed countries and proposed ways forward especially in our digital economy report and the trade and development report series in fact our next digital economy report which will be published at the end of this month focus on digital data and argus that should be harnessed as a global public good a critical tool for assistance has been the e-readiness assessment this tool supports developing countries to prepare their digital strategy and design digital transformation policies and we have conducted such studies for 27 countries 25 of which are ldcs umtats also worked with partners in latin america and africa in countries as diverse as colombia egypt and mauritius in designing the digital transformation policies to help create an effective industry 4.0 ecosystem this policy is aimed at improving both the policy measures and the governance structure and are developed following a detailed assessment on of the digitalization strategies in place and the main challenges faced by the country in small island developing states advancements of digital technology and innovative business model can promote their economic diversification and enhance their economic resilience to respond better future shocks and unthat has recently launched a project in barbados on economic diversification and resilience in which digital transformation forms an important dimension we have also proposed several paths for sales cooperation such as social's digital cooperation agenda for industrialization and regional integration through our project on sole source integration and sdgs untat has shared successfully exp policy experience of china in five areas namely macroeconomic and finance industrial policy trade policy digital policy and debt sustainability with three pilot countries ethiopia indonesia and sri lanka while successful policy experience of countries like china can of course not be simply replicated they can provide important lessons for designing and implementing successful digital policy in other developing countries so we are really happy that today we have minister from india indonesia and sri lanka to share their k-poli their key policies for digital transformation particularly focus on building data infrastructure and boost boosting digital innovation the policy experience of these countries can provide important forward ways forward for other developing countries in the transformation or digital transformation process finally and to conclude our responsibility is to mobilize the international community to have an inclusive global dialogue on all aspects of fast technological change and its impact on society including addressing ethical and normative dimensions the problem is that all countries are affected by technological change and digitalization but not whole have an equal voice an equal equipment an equal preparation in ensuring this change will ultimately be a game changer for their people lives so with this webinar we want to contribute to giving more voice to the source corporation and to the south so i'm really delighted to listen to your experience and i hope that it will be useful for all of us thank you for your attention thank you very much isabel um this was not only useful but also encouraging i think i'm now handing it to the panel to her excellency mrs amelia vida santi who is our first speaker to open the conversation you each will have about 12 to 15 minutes to speak and then i will open the floor for questions and answers is it okay yes thank you very much anastasia and ladies and gentlemen i would like to uh represent my minister on behalf of my minister i would like to share my minister's presentation slides on what uh indonesian experiences in making the digital transformation in indonesia next slide today i will be sharing indonesia's experiences in designing and implementing the policies to support economic and digital transformation in indonesia then the presentation will be divided into three main parts uh and then i would like to start with the the slide number three indonesia has actually a national development uh term plan covering five year period in all development aspects such as economic infrastructure human capital and also digital transformation if you look at this slide the development theme of indonesia in these five years is a prosperous just and sustainable indonesia with medium high income and if you look at one of our major projects within these five years one of them is ict infrastructure and also digital transformation so this is actually our effort especially during the lessons from profit 19 pandemic that we need to optimize the role of digital technology and digital economy in increasing the nation's competitiveness and the source of indonesia's future economic growth next so this is actually this the framework of indonesia's digital transformation for 2020 to 2024 so the digital transformation framework in indonesia consisted of three pillars the first pillar is provision of ict infrastructure there in this pillar it is focused on improvement in information service reliability and speed through expansion of fixed broadband and mobile broadband network optimization of frequency spectrum development of internal government network migration from analog to digital broadcasting as well as promotion of passive sharing infrastructure development and revitalization of facilities and infrastructure for uh public broadcasting institution the second pillar is how indonesia can utilize the digital infrastructure optimally so we call it the second pillar is digital utilization expansion of ict infrastructure utilization for digitizing all development sectors and economic sectors especially for government public services social assistance education health as well as trade and industry and other economic activities and the third pillar is strengthening of enablers such as upgrading the capacity of domestic ict industries and human resources we realize that to utilize the digital infrastructure optimally then the most important part is actually that we need to improve the skill of our human resources and then therefore we have to upgrade the people's digital literacy and skills in understanding and using not only the information but also the digital technology itself so the enablers that we have to strengthen also adoption of global technology utilization and also strengthening of cyber security and resilience so we have a target in 2024 that by 2024 95 of villages will be covered by the mobile broadband infrastructure and also 80 of the population will be covered by digital transmission and we will have we are also uh would like to achieve there will be another three new startup unicorn from indonesia now we have five uh unicorns stopped up for from indonesia next slide next so this is the palpatine we call it palaparin support expansion ict services uh if you look at this one uh how we have three palapa rings and uh the first one covered 33 percent of indonesian region the second one 50 15 percent and the third palapar ring is actually covered 23.16 percent and then uh available use is 504 giga bps and already been used for 116 giga bytes per second next slide nevertheless the access of digital infrastructure is still an issues for indonesia to date there are around 65 percent of sub-district and only 86 of villages in indonesia that have not yet been covered by fiber optic network meanwhile only 55 percent of villages categorized as the most disadvantaged villages and then among 500 000 public facilities in indonesia including schools government offices health facilities and military only 150 000 of them have not yet been covered by internet network so meaning that from 500 000 public facilities there they are still 150 000 of them not yet have been covered by the internet network to respond to this issue the government of indonesia undertakes a national program to expand digital infrastructure access or we call it last mind last mile program to reach all of the villages and rural areas in indonesia this is conducted through the construction of fiber optic network based transceiver stations and satellite services this blue program is supported by government budget and also uh supported by private sector for the other agent uh next slide in this slide next uh in 2018 president of the republic of indonesia launched a national campaign of making indonesia 4.0 the launching

marks the course that indonesia will implement to advance the six priority industrial sectors that this priority industrial sectors is a priority to adopt the industry 4.0 to improve the competitiveness of that industrial sector those sectors are food and beverage beverages textile and apparels electronics automotive chemical and pharmaceuticals and medical devices it is very important a milestone for indonesia especially to start promoting digital innovation making indonesia 4.0 includes 10 priority initiatives in it which are further elaborated in the form of a roadmap so we will we have had a roadmap of making indonesia 4.0 that include 10 priority initiatives next the government of indonesia also carries out a national research and innovation transformation to strengthen knowledge and innovation ecosystem to improve quality research and development as well as to develop research powerhouse and promote priority science technology and innovation for sustainable development next slide there are also several examples of how the government of indonesia promotes digital innovation in indonesia the indonesian ministry of communication and information for example conducts digital technopreneur development program which consists of in uh ignition workshop hackspring bootcamp and incubation phases that aims to improve entrepreneurial mindset basic skills that needed to create a digital startup and advance skills to prototyping a product as well as to prepare product launch and to become a digital startup next slide to improve digital literacy and skills development among indonesians digital iteration and digital talent scholarship program are also launched the digital talent scholarship specifically targets indonesian young workforces public and civil servants to improve their skills in ict another complementary program is aiming at fostering a knowledge diffusion through open innovation and open science initiatives and promote open government data to stimulate innovation across the economy the last example refers to the indonesian financial service authority that encourages policy experimentation and new business models across sectors including agile regulation and flexible application or enforcement of regulation we call it regulatory sandboxes while we also concern with protecting consumers this regulatory sandbox allows digital financial technology company to create new business model and allow some stages to finally get approval or licenses distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen the government of indonesia recognizes the important role of startup as the main driver of digital innovation in indonesia the vibrant start-up landscape in indonesia reflects creativity in finding solutions to many development challenges as well as responding to growing and diversified market demand this digital startup covers various types of market needs including financial technology online travel agents payment systems on-demand services internet of things digital wellness services and e-commerce they also shape the landscape of indonesia's digital economy that is predicted to achieve 133 billion us dollar in value by 2025. six of the startups of indonesia now are among the global unicorns last slide what we believe now that we need to develop wider collaboration among stakeholders to promote digital skills culture ethics and safety which become the main pillar of indonesia digital transformation the outcome would be society economy and government that are capable in adopting digitalization and increasing innovation so last uh what i would like to say before i close my mind my remark uh i would like to thank for untouched for this event and indonesia is ready to collaborate with antar because we believe that we are still facing some challenges to optimize the the role of digital technology and digital economy in our country and we are thinking to have a closer collaboration with anta and we think that we can have some uh joint work on how indonesia can provide a better policy for economic 4.0 so this is not only uh about how industry 4.0

but we believe that the digital technology can be utilized and can create advantages to create indonesian economy 4.0 thank you and i'll stop there thank you very much thank you very much amelia right on time and extremely insightful um please play on for questions which will be after um everybody speaks i now hand the floor to his excellence mr namal rajapaksa who is the state minister for digital technology and enterprise development of sri lanka to share his country's experiences thank you very much everyone it gives me a great pleasure to be among you today at this forum focused on the apt theme of sharing of policy experience for digital transformation at a juncture where sri lanka itself is actively engaging and sitting in motion our own national digital transformation strategy i firmly believe that well articulated digital transformation would be key to addressing the global phenomenon of digital divide which has been highlighted by the kovid 19 pandemic and we intend would have to have sustainable and focused measures in place in addressing the same in this slide we have set in a motion a well articulated strategy focusing on key pillars of digital transformation that would enable us to realize a truly digital inclusive sri lanka with the key component that make up the concept of digital inclusivity being digital skills connectivity and accessibility sri lanka has already commenced the government of san never connectivity to the village the national program through the telecommunications regulation commission aligned with the international telecommunication union connect 2030 agenda in ensuring connectivity and infrastructure enablement for rural areas with which continues to provide accessibility to non-served and unreserved areas which is progressing rapidly with the project the government has affirmed its indent by recognizing the project on national scale through the 2021 budget and the project that project the government is invested investing on the rural connectivity infrastructure as part of the universal service obligation concept today the governor's on sunday medina project continues to expand rapidly already expansion can have been intense intended with the ambitious target of initiating the project in 10 districts by the end of the year and many areas have already been introduced 4g connectivity in these districts and continue to be convert as when the infrastructure comes alive furthermore in addition to the infrastructure enablement on island-wide broadband coverage the trc intent with the telecommunication industry has made all access free of any data charge for the official e-learning platform ethercella of all governmental schools as well as e-learning platforms of state universities which has been implemented since april 2020 i believe that this is a significant milestone we have achieved in terms of extending the concept of free education to digital driven online distance education methodology as well as we all step in contributing to reducing the digital divide in this situation i believe we have been compiled to embrace online education due to the pandemic in terms of it affordability of broadband we continue to make policy decisions that would enable more and more affordable services in fact as per the latest itu global benchmark report sri lanka has made it to the top 20 countries for most affordable internet race and the top 10 in terms of voice service the significant a positive indicator to the effectiveness of our policies and we intend to continue to improve on this in the indexes improving digital literacy skills yet another key aspect we are prioritizing on and we are focusing on driving across a multi multinational national wide program across all districts out of which some are in fact driven by icta to ensure we have a well orchestrated strategy in scaling up the digital literacy skills that would enable a meaningful inclusion of all audience in gaining the best of digital transformation drive we are rolling out we need to continue to educate and advocate to the public on the importance of digital transformation and benefit of digital education especially during the pandemic for example digital education in sri lanka even though at early stage is growing at a rapid rate due to the pandemic the school system has had to embrace online education which they were reluctant to do before and now it is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the country based on the initiatives we have taken to explain before furthermore in terms of infrastructure enablement we continue to take pragmatic policy and strategic decisions and to note that few the indesign plan of setting up a ecosystem of technology parks which is currently being initiated as we speak and the introduction of our very own data center networks driven by the telecommunication industry is poised to place sri lanka as a regional technology and innovation hub in terms of creating digital enabled citizen centric government the digital government initiatives are another priority focus for us we continue to focus on ensuring the role of our rapid implementation special specifically focus on digital enable enabling citizen service and projects such as visualization of the local government bodies graham and radari network and automation of government sector entitled including the rollout of digital signature and repayment we are now in process as part of a well-defined digital roadmap we are also focusing on ensuring we bring up to the speed key legislative aspects that are imperative to support the rapid digital transformation and national data protection act and cyber security act which are the final stage of formalization as we believe it is important to ensure a sustainable and robust digital environment for all of us under the leadership of his excellency the president it is by now evident that key priorities and focus our government is to actively working towards digitally inclusive sri lanka while digital transformation is certain it could be further accelerated by collaboration by all of us the government civil society and the private sector must work together to ensure that digital technologies benefit not only the economy but society and the environment and have inclusion at their heart only then do we stand a chance of realizing the true transformation potential of digitalization to accelerate progress on sustainable development goals thank you you very much your excellency um this was wonderful and on time i now hand the floor to his excellency rajiv chandra sakka who is a minister for state electronics and information technology of india you also have up to 15 minutes thank you could you please unmute yourself thank you good morning and namaskar from new delhi um thank you for inviting me to this conversation today which is i understand a pre-event to the october program that will deal with inequality and vulnerability and prosperity for all so thank you for having me this morning india's experience in the technology space has been for many many years reasonably well known around the world driven by the private sector and we have made a reasonably significant place in the global technology ecosystem in terms of providing innovation and solutions from the indian private sector to the world government and the world's private sector in 2014 when our honourable prime minister was voted in he was voted in with a mandate for transforming governance and very early on he laid out his vision of embedding technology into governance with the view that technology ought to be used in governance to transform people's lives and to transform governance and democracy uh in general and transform people's lives in specific and in 2000 from between 2015 and 2019 and 2015 we launched something called digital india program that was over six years ago we've made tremendous progress uh we were in 2015 one of the largest unconnected countries in the world and we are poised now to become one of the largest connected nations in the world uh over those six years we've made tremendous progress in terms of not just connecting our people to the internet and making more and more indians online but very deep structural changes into how governance uh was delivered well if i don't know if you are aware but very famously in the late 80s uh prime minister of india said that out of every rupee that went from the national capital delhi to uh for the benefit of or to provide social support to the uh an indian citizen only 15 pesa reached which implied that the system was leaky and there was almost 85 percent of the funds allocated to delivering governance and delivering development for an individual was lost in transit those were the those were the back stories to which we launched digital india those were the things that we were trying to change in our governance model and uh i will say that over the last five years we've made tremendous progress and i'll give you some broad ideas of the progress that you've made we've made progress from creating national identities with the world's largest biometric database called the aadhaar we have created uh governance and direct payment models where subsidies and pensions and government benefits are directly transmitted to millions of indians directly without any mediation or whether without any intermediation and therefore without any leakage and corruption fundamental building block aspects of governance fundamental building block aspects of a relationship between government and citizen have been altered uh dramatically using technology and so uh as peop you know one one way of looking at that at the use of technology and to describe the use of technology over the last six years is that the distance between the citizen and the government has been bridged tremendously uh by technology and that is a very important statement to make in a country of the size and population of india i will say that that in the and i will say that those investments that were made in those six years in terms of the effort in governance and the effort of news and technology came to our help in this really unprecedented covert pandemic situation and never was it more evident the power of technology and the use of technology in governance working for the common citizen than during the covert pandemic where at on one end almost 800 million indians were given food free food for a large period of during the lockdowns and the duration of the pandemic income and pensions were being deposited directly into the accounts of people during the pandemic income support was being given to uh people businesses small businesses were being helped again using the power of technology so i think for the first five years uh i have absolutely no doubt we made tremendous difference using technology in people's lives but really where the true impact of technology and the use of technology by government was sharply visible was during the code pandemic and first thing i would say that yes i i believe there is an expected rush of nations and corporates and individuals to digitalize themselves in the poor's code era but i will from in the indian experience share this with all of you and for to the larger audience watching this that there are no shortcuts to this our journey has been multi-year it has been structural and it has ranged from connectivity on one hand to embedding technology and in new in government processes and platforms and digital literacy on the other hand so we've gone through the full nine yards of the things that we needed to do to use technology to make a difference in people's lives i will and just lay out a few uh benchmarks for you uh connectivity we are currently in india about uh 800 million indians that are online we still have to connect 400 million indians and so that remains a challenge and an important goal for us in the coming months and years we have launched one of the world's largest rural connectivity programs where over 400 000 villages are being wired up and connected with the broadband network and we are building public clouds uh so therefore our approach to connectivity is not just about getting online but also having access to uh cheap innovation cheap efficient uh and effective public cloud on the digital government platform side we have moved from identity to payments to education and now and health and so the full gamut of digital government experiences and digital citizen experiences are increasingly online the digital literacy part that was referred to by the honorable minister of indonesia as well is something that is a high priority for us and we have over 400 000 centers delivering digital literacy across the country uh as a way of empowering uh indians who have connectivity to the internet i will quickly wrap up by saying that we see the future uh as as being a combination of both opportunities and challenges and the opportunities are there for everybody to uh know around the table today i think the technology represents the internet represents a great opportunity for every citizen and every government whether it be innovation whether it's a digital economy or whether it is actually empowering citizens but also represents a great deal of challenges in terms of data governance the presence of big tech the consolidation of power on the internet how do we regulate these these are all very very new uh interesting challenges we as a nation are also in the process of coming up with a new data protection law because privacy is a fundamental right as determined by our supreme court and therefore we have a new jurisprudence that is evolving that will address the issue of protecting citizen rights and as well as encouraging innovation and investments in the digital economy uh i will end by saying this that india is ready to partner with all like-minded nations we have built a tremendous amount of capabilities and capacity both in government and in the private sector and we are absolutely open to working with all those who want to leapfrog a few years of development and experience in this in this area of embedding technology into governance and building digital economies and digital governance of the future thank you very much for having me uh thank you very much thank you very much um so um i'm very happy that everybody was so punctual with time and we do have questions from the floor um they're important and similar in orientation and they can send data protection and infrastructure for data storage for developing countries so i will ask now um two ministers to address directly because the questions came to them but if analyst wants to join a debate i would be very delighted with the debate um so one question is for indonesia specifically i understand indonesia has required certain types of data to be stored locally in the past uh in your experiences did this requirement encourage foreign investors to build data centers in the country in indonesia a very similar question to sri lanka um how important do you think is it for small island economies to invest in data centers in order to store and process their data how does sri lanka aim to attract mdi in this particular data center infrastructure emilia do you want to answer the question oh yes um sorry minister you you would like to go first no you can go fazal i'll follow you yeah thank you uh so regarding to the indonesia is now developing the indonesian one data and it is a kind of data center that we will build because we understand that a data center is very important through digital technology and of course if there is like a opportunity for foreign investors to also build the data center in indonesia so we are now in the process developing and to build the framework of that or indonesia one data so we invite any people who interest to work with indonesia thank you well from a sri lankan policy point of view we are in verge of finalizing the data protection act and also to formulate a data protection agency under the under the president for protection of data and we believe one thing is storing data but the main main aspect would be protection of the data that we show and and who is responsible authority for that i think my colleague from india can add it to more and they have many experiences in the indian system when they initially started so our priority is going to be finalizing the data protection act and bring it to the parliament and then formulate a data protection agency so as to the investment of data centers of course the government will also have its own data center especially as the government cloud especially for the main national data protection data collection or data storage but yet yes we are open for private sector investment as well and we are also looking at partnering with other private organizations for data centers so it's it's like any other country but we will work on our regulation and make sure that the protection of data is done from our side and then they have the regulatory bodies to be established to protect that a very important point about legislature preceding the actual um implementation and economic processes in the meantime we received a very important question for minister chandra zakar india aims to of becoming a trillion dollar digital economy very shortly by 2025. could you please highlight the major challenges facing the country in this particular ambition well uh i think yeah i mean it is more i think we look at this more of an opportunity rather than a string of challenges um today at this current uh in this current year we will export north of 200 plus billion dollars of technology exports which is mainly the software space and we think we are also focused on emerging as an electronics and technology manufacturing we have a road map to go from where we are today to a trillion dollars that is a combination of expanding our technology services uh part of the pi the electronics manufacturing pie and of course the e-commerce and the the the software is a service part of the pie so there is a road map the challenges remain challenges that are challenges for anybody which is basically to make sure that foreign investors see india as a good good destination to invest grow and these are not unusually new challenges these are challenges that we are used to and we have addressed in the past i think this is more of a if you ask me to say what the challenge is in a nutshell it is really about resetting our ambition and expanding uh our horizon in the post-covered world to what we believe is a new definition of opportunity the opportunities of the greek covered world were tempered by a very different view of the global supply chain for technology and i think in the postcode world the world sees the supply chain for technology very very differently and it is for countries like india to you know capitalize on that changed view the change focus on trust the change focus on reliable supply chains and be a larger player in that thank you very much and indeed post cover challenges are changing a lot of our previous concepts of economic management and governance i think the question now would be for all three panelists and it's about digital inclusion and inclusiveness of this new economy what are the major lessons that your countries have drawn and others can replicate or learn from how to make digital economy really inclusive in post-covered reality who's first do what you whoever goes first i will be happy to you i i don't know whatever with you please go ahead yeah please go ahead thank you thank you thank you for letting me speak on this first for from our perspective uh from very early on uh we were very clear that technology was not never supposed to divide and technology must include and technology is indeed the way to be more inclusive in a democracy like ours which is as you know very very large spread across a large geography and for us the mission of the use of technology and the mission of digital india was always about bringing more and more people under the governance net that were over decades outside the name so inclusion was almost built into the design of digital india and the first uh the raw material of that inclusion was connectivity we saw that early on we've spent the government has spent significant amounts of capital in ensuring that india moves from being one of the largest unconnected countries to being one of the largest connected countries through a combination of wireless and broadband through a combination of private investment and public investment and so apart from connectivity layering on top of the public internet multiple government platforms whether they range from ids to payments to health to public services that range from the very very ordinary to the very complicated uh layering public services and platforms on top of the public internet was the other way of making sure more and more indians were included in this uh and i i want to say it more than this but accepting to say i think technology has to be inclusive and any government using technology must be driven by its mission for inclusion as the primary mission than the other fallouts of technology which is innovation ecosystem the digital economy and so on and so forth so we've done that and i think uh that is what has helped us during kovitt and i hope that was that is something that we will continue to do and that is i hope a model that most countries follow exactly thank you anybody else wanted you to answer you want to go first or i'll be the last please go ahead minister yeah i'm after you thank you so yeah i mean i agree with a colleague from india as well i mean one is the people-centric development based on technology and and bringing people close to the government is something that we learn to use technology through uh during the pandemic so there are a few challenges that we face as a country one i would say to get people to use to the system you know because we are used to a certain system for a very long time so unless you uh go through it and you get used to the system and the digitalization is people-centric utilization administration is something that we are we learn during the pandemic and it has worked for us well and when especially when it comes to education because earlier even though we tried to introduce technology to classroom but yet the traditional classroom that was accepted by the students and the parents but eventually with the pandemic people started accepting uh the the virtual classroom so i think this is something that we learned during the pandemic and that we can take it forward and also the digitalization has to be people-centric and get people involved with it and also it's not only about the economy or the benefit or the efficiency but also to make sure that this becomes makes life more easier when you go to the out outside the cities or when you go to rural areas of our countries you know and as i as as we all agree you know connectivity is key so one thing that we are very working very seriously and investing heavily from the government side is to connect every citizen every village and and also give them the literacy of technology you know it it literacy rate is moving forward reasonably in our country but we believe if we are to go for a digital id card which we are looking at uh going at the end of the year along with egrama savage project which which which will digitalize the entire national government service along with the national id card and that will require a lot of digital literacy and connectivity in the rural area so this is something that we are working on as a government and we have invested and and along with that bringing out the legislation to ensure that we use the technology and we make sure that we use it for the betterment of the people and also the people user and the government and the people are all protected through legislation you know this is a other pillar that we are working on very closely with this department in drafting these legislations thank you very much namal uh i want to um just reiterate that very interesting questions are coming into q a box and to the floor but uh mrs abaldorant is about to leave at um 11 o'clock she has to leave us and i'm giving her very briefly vlog for concluding remarks yes thank you anastasia and i i don't want to use the time for question and answer because the goal of this meeting is really to exchange just to let you know and to thank really sincerely the different minister because what you provide is really interesting useful especially in the perspective of the new report that we will provide on data issues and as a public good and frankly i appreciate a lot you you the attention that you paid for regulation because it's true that it's nice or it's important to receive foreign investment for data center that's really key but in the same times develop a real regulate regulator framework and adapt the jurisprudence was said by the sri lankes minister is really important so i would like to just to tell you that it's important for us to continue the discussion with you it's a process it's no endless but really a long process and i think that is back and forth between you experience and all reports is absolutely key so thank you for that we keep in touch and i hope that it could be share on the good way with all the partners in the room sorry for to have to leave you but i have another panel on ldc issues so that's also related to indirectly to a digitalization thank you so much and we keep in touch thank you very much for joining us um okay a very important question uh unless i nearly want to pick up on the previous one can i get one direct one that actually just came here sure uh i just would like to note that uh digital technology is actually the very important opportunity that we have to utilize now or never because uh once we can utilize it optimally we can ensure that a country can pursue for in more inclusive economic growth and the second one is that we believe in indonesia that once we can establish the infras digital infrastructure until remote villages then we can ensure that the persons of people in the remote areas can be connected to a wider market and they can also do a better economic activities and that can be a way for us to ensure uh and to reduce the gap between the cities and the villages and also it is very important to ensure that people in the remote areas can engage to the market by digital technology thank you exactly um so a very important last question to indonesia and to deputy minister your country imposes 10 vat on foreign providers of digital products and services could you please share with us the reasons for imposing these tax and the country's experience in terms of collecting this tax revenue in this context would you also share your views on the relevance of wto moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmission given that indonesia is projected to lose significant revenue if this moratorium is renewed uh the value added tax is that is that right yes it's the ten percent vat on foreign providers of digital products and services your views your your reasons for imposing and for collecting um tax revenue yeah i i think this is a part of our effort to enhance uh the the tech space in indonesia uh it's not only because we are differentiating that or we we we call it that we apply something different to uh to tax this digital products but uh we are actually also trying to impose a kind of sugar tax right and and the other types of tax and this is basically only for uh uh widening the tax base of indonesia because as you know that the tax revenue is in indonesia is now declining uh so not declining the tax the the the the what they call it the the percentage of tax to gdp in indonesia is declining so i think we need to find another sources of taxes but at the same time during coffee 19 pandemic we also need to balance between which one that we need to tax and which one that we have to uh to to uh some relaxation uh in taxes uh i think i think that is what we are now doing excellent thank you very much and it's um it's a very relevant answer uh to sri lanka to honourable minister of sri lanka could you please share with us some more detail on the draft bill on processing of personal data and this concerns our previous discussion on privacy and inclusion what are the main similarities and differences between european eu data protection regulation and sri lanka's draft bill well i mean uh aegis department is in responsible of uh drafting it with the expertise and also i must say that we will be in part with what is happening in u.n and what other regulations have been adopted by regional partners so it won't be anything extraordinary that is coming in as to data protection and data collection but it will be in par with the eu and also rest of other organizations that are that has already uh drafted this kind of uh similar legislation and also um such as india indonesia you know all these models that they are following so it is something that is almost similar to what has been uh used or what has been passed in parliaments in many countries but yes it will be in part with the new generation and also we are looking at the digital economic digital currency and also digital banking to be established in the in the long run so the distillation based on those will be drafted separately with with the experts and and people involved in the industry thank you very much to the indian minister to your your excellence why has your country proposed the digital tax again on equalization levy why what is it aim to achieve and this is a continued discussion of revenue and regulation um i'm assuming you're you're talking about the tax on the offshore e-commerce companies and yeah probably yeah it's a question from the floor i'm reading out here yeah so i and this is not unusual i think many other jurisdictions do the same as long as the e-commerce companies are owned by indian entities uh and even if they're offshore there is no uh tax equalization levy that's imposed on them the two percent digital service tax uh but offshore uh e-commerce companies have to pay that and that is not uh tremendously unique because it's been practiced by many many other countries but but even if you're an offshore e-commerce company but have a domestic presence you are exempt from that tax it's a fairly simple proposition okay that's that's very interesting there is a question to all ministers because you all mentioned human capital or learning skill or labor challenges in one way or another building digital skills of existing labor force is a common challenge facing all developing countries can you share any specific policy which has been successfully implemented in your particular country in this particular regard what has worked really in your view uh can can i go first yes please yeah okay the sri lanka is looking at uh we actually started with along with the expansion of broadband we our biggest challenge was to improve the literacy rate so along with the literacy rate of course then comes in the pacific education based on technology or i.t or industrial pacific education so we have partnered with many organizations locally and also globally for training specific training for technology blockchain industries and i.t related as everyone is very well

aware of e-commerce platform and rest of the industries so one of the aspects that we are looking at expanding the local e-commerce industry and introducing the smes to integrate with the e-commerce industry in way of selling their product uh to the local and the global market so that is something that we are seriously looking at expanding and encouraging say means to get involved when i say smes i'm talking about non-tech smes to be established to be connected with the e-commerce platforms so in that way their product can be reached to the entire country and also if required uh sending it globally so the biggest challenge i would say again the convincing the youngsters to get involved in these kind of educational programs and get them educationally qualify city qualified academically qualified uh to get engaged with e-commerce success section or technology and also looking at establishing back offices such as bpos and kpos to be established and then shifting your mindset from a traditional employment environment in getting into a e-commerce sorry getting into a bpo or kpo sector you know this is something that we are working very closely with the youth council of sri lanka and also other youth organizations along with other educational organizations including citra labs and microsoft and all the other partners that we are looking at expanding the the it literacy rate specifically for job creation and innovation thank you very much i know you need to leave in five minutes so i will i will thank everybody but i will probably give the floor to your colleagues to answer this question if you still have time to be with us before we leave sri amelia do you want to answer the question on labor policy in particular that has worked definitely for your country yeah uh actually we also have uh training for smes to utilize and the digital technology especially how that they can engage to the marketplace electronically like e-commerce marketplace uh i think this is also the same as in in uh like like what minister nama rajapaksa mentioned um the second one we have uh a program we call it coding mom coding mom is a training for women so we would like that women can also understand the digital technology for the basic principles because we know that we need to empower the women to be able to utilize digital technology better for improving their economic opportunity so i think this is one way of inclusive inclusiveness that we also provide a wider opportunity for women to also this is a kind of womanly therapy to digital technology we also concerned with that reducing the gap not uh or reducing the the digital divide not only between uh across the region but also across uh gender men and women uh thank you thank you very much so i think uh one of the uh and i just want to say that i i'm apart from holding the portfolio of information technology and electronics i also hold the portfolio of skill development and entrepreneurship and it is something that our government has recognized from uh some years ago that's killing reskilling and upskilling are part of almost the raw material for developing the digital governance ecosystem and so we have really broadly two very two-pronged approach to it one is broad digital literacy uh education and skilling program that is run through a network of almost 400 000 common service centers and skilling centers that basically give foundational digital literacy to citizens and that allows them to become much faster adopters of digital technology so apart from that we also have a very specialized killing which is outside of higher education a specialized skilling network that effectively upskills those who are already in the i.t space or the technology space at a basic level and i think postcode the demand for skilled information technology talent is is tremendous as more and more people even on basic micro entrepreneurship roles seek out digital skills so this is something that we've started in 2015 as a government and it is in the post covered uh world uh post cover era if you want to use that phrase uh just being uh expanded and grown even further this is excellent thank you i have a very interesting question from the floor do any of your governments set maximum prices for internet access whether mobile data or broadband to ensure it is actually affordable this is a question on inclusivity and pricing shall i repeat yeah i will just quickly off the bat say that india is one of the cheapest uh compared to all of the western countries we are afraid we are in terms of what you know ranges between 120th to 100th in terms of the cost of data and therefore cost of access and so internet access and the becoming online for an average consumer in india is we believe very very inexpensive compared to the rest of the world thank you um i have a very specific question to the indonesian deputy minister again thank you for explaining the reasons for the 10 vat on foreign providers of digital products and services has this tax collected significant revenue for your country uh i don't have the exact uh exact number for that one at the moment let me double check for it and i'll get to you thank you uh i'm very uh delighted to to be in this company in the morning in geneva and afternoon wherever you are probably in the world now i learned several things from our distinguished speakers not only about of course the importance of innovation and support but in terms of state management of time and how important is to have this structural advantage in facilitating broadband digital technology and access to your population especially now to me in my previous academic experience of course it does have very strong ecos with the success of developmental states in east asia and southeast asia before when they implemented very targeted industrial competitiveness policies so it looks like this is really a new wave of developmental trajectory and these are countries that anybody can learn from i also um noted that each of you spoke about the importance of regulation and the role of the state in supporting the not only the drive in the innovation drive but also the the legislation governance of the new economy and it should not be really under underestimated especially in post-covet realities which are now marked um probably by a new understanding of the relationship between the the private entrepreneurship private capital and public benefit so i thank each one of you for your valuable time experiences preparation and fantastic presentations i think if we do have any more communication from the flow the moderators will be in touch with you uh closer to time convenient and of course anxiety thank you very much for your for your presence and have a lovely evening afternoon and you too bye bye thanks a lot thank you

2021-09-06 08:49

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