Indonesia ICT Infrastructure Development Can Be Exemplified

INDUSTRY.co.id - Jakarta - International Telecommunication Union (ITU) assesses the development of information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure with cooperation schemes of government and business entities (KPBU) in Indonesia can be emulated by other countries.

"Public private partnership (KPBU) conducted by the Indonesian government can be used as an example. There is really a creative approach because there are now 3.5 billion people who have not connected the network," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao in a public lecture in Jakarta on Tuesday.

The ITU and the United Nations record to connect 1.5 billion people in the network by 2020, at least 450 billion US dollars.

However, the World Bank does not have the budget to finance the telecommunications infrastructure development project of that size.

To that end, ITU considers the use of the KPBU scheme by attracting investment from the private sector to support ICT infrastructure.

Zhao affirmed the importance of ICTs to connect people within networks and facilitate socio-economic development.

"ICTs are also important for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). ICTs are important for e-government, e-commerce, e-health and e-education," Zhao said.

It expects the government to create a good investment climate to overcome the infrastructure problems faced by ICT.

The Palapa Ring Project is the first telecom project in the telecommunications sector by applying the availability payment (AP) scheme initiated by the Ministry of Finance.

The source of AP funding comes from universal service obligation (USO) contribution funds or general service obligation (KPU) funds from telecommunication business operators which account for 1.25 percent of quarterly operating revenues. (Ant)