Morshidi (third left) presents Foo with a memento as a token of gratitude for the latter’s hospitality. From left are Ministry of Housing and Urbanisation permanent secretary Datu Sudarsono Osman, Assistant Minister for Housing Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah, Talib and Borneo Development Corporation chairman Datuk Peter Nansian.
SHENZHEN: Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg’s vision of a booming digital economy in Sarawak has begun to garner support from foreign players such as Chinese technology giant, Huawei.
Earlier this month, the chief minister announced that he was committed to the goal of allowing Sarawak to enter the digital age and boost its digital economy through continued efforts to bring connectivity throughout the state.
The endeavour is estimated to cost around RM2 billion with a set timeframe of four to five years to achieve it.
“Such amount (RM2 billion) is required for us to, among other things, lay down the fibre optic, cloud computing and satellite to cover the whole of Sarawak,” Abang Johari told a press conference after giving the chief minister’s keynote address to state civil servants earlier this month.
His rationale for the endeavour was that technology was unavoidable and necessary for progress.
“We want to provide high speed Internet connection of up to two terabits per second and if this could be implemented, then we could really transform the economy, including rural entrepreneurship.”
This ambitious and passionate vision for Sarawak has since caught the attention of Huawei, which invited Abang Johari and his delegation from the Ministry of Housing and Urbanisation and Sarawak Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Sheda) Kuching branch to attend a briefing and a tour at its facilities during their working visit to Hong Kong and China.
The briefing was held last Thursday at the Grand Intercontinental Hotel in Foshan where Foo Fang Yong, vice president of Huawei Technologies Malaysia Sdn Bhd (Huawei Malaysia), gave a presentation on the possible methods or strategies that the Sarawak government could take in order to bring the chief minister’s vision to reality.
“From our point of view, the Sarawak government should play a catalyst role together with the whole ecosystem in Sarawak to create supply and demand for connectivity within the state,” Foo said.
Foo, who is a Malaysian, explained that it might not suffice if the government was just playing a regulatory role as there might not be enough momentum generated to keep the ecosystem going.
“No matter how much money you’ve poured in, it will dry up one day. To prevent this, we need to ensure that the cycle has enough momentum to carry itself without constant government support or intervention. Whether this is achievable or not will be reliant on whether there is a collective desire for it from the community.”
Drawing on his expertise, Foo went on to suggest that it would be wise to look towards the success the Chinese government had had in their efforts to bring a need for connectivity to their rural areas.
“Pilot programmes are a prime example of what the government in China is doing with their e-government applications and their cloud consolidation efforts. For example, they moved it into a few cities to start off with and showed to the whole nation that the applications could be better and more effective.
“This created a desire and need for more applications from the communities, which brought out our private sector players to recognise the potential in the situation which in turn, poured in more investments from the private sector.”
The presentation ended with a questions-answer segment where Foo answered some of the queries Abang Johari had about Huawei’s business activities within Sarawak and Malaysia.
The following morning, the delegation was invited to a tour of Huawei’s facilities at their headquarters in Shenzhen where they were briefed on the technology Huawei’s research and development (R&D) efforts had brought about and the benefits it could bring to developing communities.
Following the conclusion of the tour, Assistant Minister for Urbanisation Datuk Talib Zulpillip was extremely hopeful of Huawei’s R&D efforts.
“The ICT (information communication technology) they possess is extremely advanced and there is room for possible adoption and application in Sarawak,” he said.
Due to the unfortunate passing of Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr Wong Soon Kai, Abang Johari was absent from the tour as he had to head back to Kuching to pay his last respects. State Secretary Tan Sri Datuk Amar Mohamad Morshidi Abdul Ghani went along on the tour in his stead.