Analysts skeptical on SE Asia high-tech plan

Analysts skeptical on SE Asia high-tech plan

MANILA (Reuters): Southeast Asia will pledge this weekend to make the region "IT-friendly" and use the Internet to boost trade and prosperity, senior officials said on Wednesday.

But analysts who look at information technology (IT) industries have yet to be convinced the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) can deliver anything but fine words from their summit on Nov. 28.

"In the past you have had a whole load of these summits and nothing has really come out of it," said Neel Sinha, head of research in Manila for SG Securities.

"I am a little skeptical about it. You can come up with a master plan but it depends who is in the driver's seat."

U.S. software firm Oracle Corp and other high-technology firms will meet leaders of the 10-member ASEAN on Sunday to discuss the communications and electronics industries.

The head of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, Roberto Romulo, said seven top executives including Oracle chairman Larry Ellison would spend at least an hour briefing the ASEAN leaders.

The aim would be to establish a good physical infrastructure of lines and networks for fast telecommunications, improve IT education and lay down legal and policy ground rules to harmonize information technology industries across the region.

"The leaders have decided they cannot march into the 21st century without understanding the imperatives of information technology and the Internet," Romulo said in an interview.

The leaders of ASEAN -- grouping Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- made a bold promise a year ago to establish an "ASEAN information infrastructure" by the year 2004.

But little progress has been made towards this goal and private sector and government officials now feel the region needs help developing the communications industries that are beginning to generate a significant share of global trade.

"We have a long way to go to catch up with the rest of the world," said Romulo, former chairman of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co, who is helping coordinate the initiative.

Executives of IBM and Telekom Malaysia would also meet the ASEAN leaders on Sunday, he said.

ASEAN's problem is that it encompasses 10 countries with hugely different stages of development and wealth.

Impoverished Laos and Myanmar have little significant telecommunications use or developed electronic infrastructures, while Singapore and Malaysia have both spent billions of dollars building high-speed data networks.

Teledensity in Singapore -- the number of telephone lines per 100 people -- is close to 65, but it is only around 10 in the Philippines and close to zero in Laos, industry data show.