Telecoms society proposes new ministry
Telecoms society proposes new ministry
JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Telecommunications Society
(Mastel) proposed on Thursday the establishment of a new ministry
to oversee telecommunications, broadcasting, multimedia and
information technology.
The head of Mastel's organization and government affairs
division, Rahardjo Tjakraningrat, said at a media conference on
Friday the future development of these sectors would be more
efficient and coherent if they were integrated under one
ministry.
"The integration of these sectors under one ministry would
help the government cut unnecessary bureaucratic chains and
become more focused on the future development of these
interrelated sectors," he said.
He said the new government should not delay merging these
sectors into one ministry if it did not want to be left behind by
the current global trend of the convergency of
telecommunications, broadcasting, multimedia and information
technology industries.
Mastel executive director Risa Bhinekawati said some countries
had already consolidated telecommunications, multimedia,
broadcasting and information technology under one ministry.
"These countries include Singapore, Australia, Korea, Malaysia
and the Philippines," she said.
Currently, the telecommunications industry in Indonesia is
overseen by the Ministry of Communications, broadcasting by the
Ministry of Information and information technology by the
Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Telecommunications was previously under the now defunct
tourism, post and telecommunications ministry. The government
merged telecommunications into the Ministry of Communications,
formerly known as the transportation ministry, in 1998.
Rahardjo said the technical and commercial development of the
telecommunications, broadcasting, multimedia and information
technology sectors would in the near future be very much
interrelated, so they needed to be handled more seriously and
coherently under "one roof".
Indications of the convergence of these sectors in Indonesia
are not obvious, but can be detected in the steady growth of the
Internet, electronic commerce and other multimedia services, he
said. (cst)