MALAYSIAN UNIVERSITY TO BE REGIONAL ICT TRAINING CENTRE

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 (Bernama) -- A local university will serve as a centre
for training and research in information communications technology (ICT) to
further develop the field in the Southeast Asian region.

Information Communication and Culture Minister Dr Rais Yatim
said this was one of the forms of cooperatioon agreed upon at the Asean
Telecommunications and IT Ministers (Telmin) meeting with Japan, here, Thursday.

He said at the 10th Telmin Meeting, the ministers had a special meeting with
Japan's Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications, Yoshihiro Katayama, who
expressed his country's wish to collaborate with Asean through some projects.

"Among the projects is a training scheme for the new generation in
connectivity at a Malaysian university as the training centre," he said after
chairing the meeting at a hotel, here.

He said Japan chose to conduct ICT training and research in a Malaysian
university as it felt that Malaysia had satisfactory educational facilities.

However, he added, the Telmin Secretariat and Japan had not decided on the
university.

Rais said Japan had also expressed its strong commitment to developing ICT
in the Asean region, including contributing US$150,000 (about RM458,000) for
additional programmes needed by Asean which were to be decided by the
secretariat and Japan.

He said all the delegations at today's meeting agreed that Japan head a
number of training and research programmes drawn up for the development of ICT
in this region.

"We see that Japan's commitment will be very good for ICT development under
Asean, and we hope the technical training will be a continuous one which will
extend to other elements of development," he said.

-- BERNAMA