Indian Chief Minister visits ITBB

October 26, 2000

The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, India, the Hon Mr Chandrababu Naidu, led an Indian delegation to visit Hong Kong and held bilateral discussion with Mrs Carrie Yau, Secretary for Information Technology and Broadcasting, this (October 26) afternoon.

Mr Naidu was recently voted as "IT man of the year" by the Computer World for his vision and contributions in promoting IT development in Andhra Pradesh.

Hong Kong signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on IT co-operation with India early this year and the visit was one of a series of activities on exchange and collaboration between the two places under the auspices of the MOU. This followed shortly the visit by the Indian Minister of IT, Mr Pramod Mahajan, to Hong Kong in July.

Briefing the Chief Minister on the IT development in Hong Kong, Mrs Yau emphasized that IT manpower supply would be a key issue to be addressed in the coming year. She shared with the Chief Minister's views that India could supply quality IT programmers to meet the IT manpower needs in Hong Kong.

"There are also a lot of opportunities for leading Indian IT training institutions with programs recognized internationally to co-operate with local bodies in providing IT training in Hong Kong. This would help to increase our IT manpower supply," she added.

Mrs Yau also explained to the Chief Minister the recent initiative of setting up a dedicated task force under the auspices of the Information Infrastructure Advisory Committee and comprising representatives from both the demand and supply sides to address the IT manpower issue. The task force would be chaired personally by Mrs Yau and would convene its first meeting in early November.

Mr Naidu has embarked on the initiative to develop Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, as a high-tech city or what is called the "Cyberabad". There were a lot of similarities to the Cyberport development in Hong Kong.

The Cyberport project, which is under construction at Telegraph Bay, Pokfulam, aims to provide a focal point for like-minded IT companies and professionals to exchange ideas, expertise and unleash creative synergy. Mrs Yau expressed confidence that the project would develop itself into an international IT centre which would be interfaced with other high-tech centres elsewhere in the world.

Impressed by the Cyberport development, Mr Naidu expressed interest in developing a co-operative interface between Hyderabad and the Cyberport in fostering links between India and Hong Kong.

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