RI asks WB to fund telecoms project

RI asks WB to fund telecoms project

JAKARTA (JP): The government is asking the World Bank for more
financial assistance to support the development of the country's
telecommunications network, a senior official said yesterday.

The Secretary General of the Ministry of Tourism, Post and
Telecommunications, Jonathan Parapak, said it wanted the money to
finance part of the Nusantara-21 telecommunications project.

"We talked about the aid proposal with the World Bank in April
last year," he said.

Parapak said the World Bank had not yet given a formal
response but was optimistic the World Bank's response would be
positive.

"The World Bank was very supportive with our efforts to
develop information technology here," Parapak said after giving a
presentation at a seminar on the information technology
revolution.

He said a steering committee was formed last year to establish
the Nusantara 21 telecommunications development concept.

The Nusantara 21 concept focuses on the development of
infrastructure and application aspects of information technology.

Parapak said the World Bank had encouraged Indonesia to begin
making software to support the huge telecommunications project.

"The bank has agreed to help but we are still discussing the
possibilities now," he said.

PT Telkom might cooperate with India and Pakistan to market
the software as these nations are the current software makers and
were more technologically advanced, he said.

"PT Telkom may also cooperate with private companies to
produce software," he said.

Parapak said Indonesia would also set up partnerships with the
Iridium global satellite telecommunications project as part of
the Nusantara-21 program.

Iridium, led by U.S. firm Motorola, would operate 66
satellites to be launched next year with the capacity to serve
1.5 million mobile telephones and 500,000 international pagers.

Parapak said at least US$2 billion a year was invested in
Indonesia's telecommunications sector. (02)