DELIBERATE ON THREE THRUSTS IN FUTURE NITC MEETINGS, SAYS PM

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 7 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Najib Razak proposed that
three thrusts areas namely E-Sovereignty, New Sources of Growth and Digital
Social Inclusion be deliberated in future National Information Technology
Council (NITC) meetings.

He said E-Sovereignty would touch on aspects of protection, promotion,
education and prevention while New Sources of Growth would cover, amongst
others, e-economy, creative multimedia content industry, e-agriculture and
e-services.

The Digital Social Inclusion includes programmes for bridging the digital
divide and high speed broad band roll-out, Najib told reporters after chairing
the NITC meeting, here Monday.

The Prime Minister said the National Strategic Framework for bridging the
digital divide implementation thrusts would see increased utilisation of
Information Communication Technology (ICT) in programmes for women, elderly,
disabled, indigenous, rural, the poor, small and medium as well as macro
enterprises.

He pointed out that coordination was important to avoid duplication and
wastage of resources.

Najib said, "Local content has to be developed and tailored according to
the needs of target communities inorder to encourage higher ICT adoption in our
digital inclusion agenda.

" However, the development of the Telecentre Transformation Roadmap is
important to ensure that telecentres continue to play an effective role in
meeting the needs of the underserved communities".

Earlier in his speech, Najib said the digital divide issue in Malaysia was
real and growing and had profound implications.

" It is not just an issue of equitable access to technology and gaps between
the info-rich and info-poor but also covers the literacy, basic skills,
localised content, the development of self-managed communities and empowering
society by providing opportunities to use ICT," he said.

Saying that the digital content industry has been identified as one of the
new sources of growth in the e-economy, Najib added that Malaysia had great
potential in this areas judging from the success achieved in the MSC Creative
and Multimedia Content Initiative (M-CMCI).

The Prime Minister said one of the initiatives undertaken under the M-CMCI
was to establish the Malaysian Multimedia Creative Content Centre which
conducted various programmes namely Internet Protocol Creation and Awareness,
Enhancing Talents and Skills.

The Creative Multimedia Cluster of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Malaysia
comprises 183 MSC status companies specialising in post-production, animation,
game development, e-learning, mobile and interative content.
It has successfully created 7,115 jobs and recorded a revenue of RM730
million (about US$207 million) with export valued at RM125 million (US$35.5
million).

With the advent of the Internet, Najib said cyber threats have become a real
concern to the nation.

He hoped a just completed study into the matter would help enhance the legal
provisions and policies to deal and to effectively address illegal and immoral
activities in the cyber environment.

Among the challenges raised during the meeting included issues of anonymity,
cross border jurisdiction, evidence gathering process and clarity of the law.
(US$1=RM3.52)
-- BERNAMA