Speech by Mr K H Lau, Director of Information Technology Services at the ITSD Conference & Exhibition Feb 1999 on 2 - 2 - 1999

Colleagues, Good morning to you all and I would like to extend my warmest welcome to you for coming to this, the 1999 ITSD Conference and Exhibition.

In November last year, Digital 21, the Information Technology Strategy for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, was published. This strategy sets out our vision, initiatives and targets for how Government, business, industry and academia can work together to make Hong Kong a leading digital city in a globally connected world. Few would deny that we are living in a digital age with many distinctive features. I would venture to suggest that this brave new world is typified by the ever expanding cyber space, global connectivity by digital networks and the convergence of the media. Today, I would like to share with you our initiative to build an infrastructure for Government services, and, a little later, also services from the private sector, to be delivered electronically to the general public.

The wealth of information residing on the Internet, which now consists of around 21 million host computers world-wide, has attracted a tremendous growth of network users globally. Today, more than 100 million people worldwide are using the Internet, but this is only a fraction of those who are thronging to join this connected society. In Hong Kong, the number of Internet accounts has been increasing at a staggering rate, from around 436,000 to 655,000, a 50% growth in the first half of last year. The PC home penetration rate is some 34%, which compares very favourably with that in other countries advanced in IT. With the promotion of our Digital 21 strategy, we expect that the IT literacy rate in Hong Kong will be increased. It is one of our key aims to increase Hong Kong's competitiveness through the use of information technology. The Electronic Service Delivery project, or ESD as it is known for now, is the government's effort to spearhead growth of electronic commerce in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has an excellent communications backbone. Our telecommunications network, which is the cornerstone for our digital world, is one of the most advanced in the world. Our broadband coverage for households and businesses is expanding rapidly and is set to reach 70% by this summer. It is against this backdrop that, as you probably all know, the Government has committed to provide public services to business and the community through an Electronic Service Delivery infrastructure. This will enable the public to transact business with Government online and in a seamless manner through various delivery channels including, but not limited to, personal computer access through the Internet, publicly accessible smart phones and interactive television.

In the process of implementing ESD, we aim to identify and remove any impediments which might hamper the development of on-line service delivery. For example, we will address the fundamental questions of security, authentication and payments. To this end, a local Certification Authority will be established by the end of this year. A clear legal framework will also be established in order to provide certainty in the conduct of electronic transactions. The framework will cover issues such as legal recognition of data messages and electronic signatures, as well as the establishment of certification authorities.

Using the facilities to be provided, the public have diverse access means to obtain services provided by different agencies and will find them to be a more efficient and effective alternative to the conventional form of public service delivery. The new means will be as secure and reliable as the conventional paper-based form.

The interface standards used in the ESD infrastructure will be open and market-based. This is an important feature to ensure that we are not locked into a particular solution that will not be sustainable and that we build in the necessary flexibility for the adoption of advanced technology. Adopting an open standard will also enable the private sector, spanning a wide variety of industries, to deliver their services through this infrastructure.

Hong Kong is a bilingual city, where both English and Chinese are used. So we are able to communicate with and obtain information from most regions of the digital world where English is the lingua franca. On the other hand, we can use Chinese to promote and develop Chinese content for the web, to cooperate with other Chinese communities, and to act as the digital intermediary between the Mainland of China and other parts of the world. And thus, in this bilingual society we need both Chinese and English user interfaces for the implementation of Electronic Service Delivery to be successful. This interface will, in turn, further enable electronic communication by the community in the Chinese language.

The setting up of this electronic service infrastructure will integrate public services in a way that greatly enhances their delivery to the citizen. The aim is to make dealing with the government more convenient and more readily available. The vision is to transform the delivery of public services from the present organizational perspective to one based on service functions as seen by the citizen. This will require the setting up of a range of supporting functions to enable government departments to re-engineer their services electronically.

In this regard, ITSD is re-making itself as its role has expanded during the past year. While ITSD will continue to help government bodies arrange the design and delivery of IT solutions, the implementation work will increasingly be outsourced to the private sector. At the same time, ITSD is dedicated to provide departments with the base for fast and secure data exchange and transactions. Some examples are: building a secure central gateway for communications between departments and the community; establishing a public certification authority; and others. Furthermore, we are developing a programme to promote the wider use of IT in the community.

In both of his Policy Addresses to date the Chief Executive has affirmed the strategic importance of information technology in the future development of Hong Kong. The sum of the initiatives, of which ESD is a core part, is that Hong Kong will be a leader, not a follower, in the information world of tomorrow. We will help to realise the Chief Executive's vision of Hong Kong that I outlined at the beginning, that of being a leading digital city in the globally connected world of the 21st century.

Upon that note, I have pleasure in declaring this conference and exhibition open. I hope that all of you enjoy the technology that is being demonstrated in this event and, in closing, I should just like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the people behind the scenes who have made this event possible.