Indonesia, S Korea solidify cooperation in digital government

Jakarta, 22/9 (ANTARA) - Indonesia and South Korea further solidified their cooperation for realizing digital transformation through the electronic-based government system at the Digital Government Cooperation (DGCC) Forum in Jakarta on Friday.

The DGCC Forum is being held through collaboration between the Indonesian Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (PAN RB) Ministry and the South Korean Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MoIS) and the National Information Society Agency (NIA).

"Owing to the complementary relations between the natural resources and advantages wielded by Indonesia and Korea, both countries can explore even more cooperation opportunities in various sectors," PAN RB Minister Abdullah Azwar Anas said in his opening remarks at the forum on Friday.

In 2023, the governments of Indonesia and South Korea are executing collaborative projects related to the development of digital identification cards and digitalization strategies for alleviating poverty, he added.

Regarding the extension of the DGCC cooperation project in 2024, Minister Anas said that the DGCC Committee has conveyed a number of proposals, including regarding support for the Indonesian government for developing its new capital, Nusantara, as a smart city.

"The cooperation proposals involve the use of big data and artificial intelligence for bureaucratic services, open-source technological design, and design for big data of service provision," he elaborated.

The minister observed that both countries genuinely need to continue strengthening their strategic partnership to successfully script the digital transformation for the sake of a better future.

According to Minister Anas, the Indonesian government has witnessed progress in its efforts to realize digital transformation, which is believed to be crucial for expediting national development.

"The government will continue to create nationally-integrated services by interconnecting (digital) systems and applications. We are also taking notes from the best practices of various countries, including Korea, to create breakthroughs in digital transformation in Indonesia," he stated.

At the same forum, President of South Korea's NIA, Jong Sung Hwang, affirmed that his side will actively assist Indonesia in implementing digital governance. The NIA was established in 1987 to help digitize the South Korean government, he noted.

"In the past, the South Korean government had 17,060 silo systems before integrating all of them into an all-in-one service," he said.

He added that in digitizing its bureaucratic activities and services, a country must ensure that everything goes well and all available data are easy to use.

"Data infrastructure can cut the time required to prepare data and make them easier to use," he said.