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Speech by Mr. Alan Wong, Director of Information Technology
Services at The Opening Ceremony of the 12th Asian Information
Technology Exhibition on
12 September 2001
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
I am delighted to be invited here this morning to officiate
at this opening ceremony of the Asian IT Expo 2001, one of the
most important and well established annual IT events in the
region.
This year's expo will feature on E-commerce, mobile commerce,
enterprise solutions/ application software, broadband/Internet,
E-Security, and E-Learning/Training. These are hot topics not
only for the IT professionals, but also for the business executives
and the community as a whole. We fully support events like the
Asian IT Expo which provides a valuable forum for participants
to share their vision and to understand the latest trend and
development in IT products and services. We also believe this
will raise the profile of Hong Kong as the information hub in
the Asia Pacific region.
Hong Kong has made significant progress in developing as a digital
city since the promulgation of the first Digital 21 Strategy
in 1998. In response to the rapidly and radically changing world
of e-business, the Government has published the 2001 Digital
21 IT Strategy in May this year. Building on Hong Kong's early
success in establishing a solid foundation for the use of IT,
this strategy will strive to leverage IT to position Hong Kong
as a leading e-business community and digital city in the globally
connected world.
One important component of the 2001 Digital 21 strategy is to
ensure the SAR Government leads by example. Government is committed
to the promotion and adoption of e-business, both in conducting
internal business operations and in delivering public services
to the businesses and community. At present, 65% of the Government
services that are amenable to the electronic mode of delivery
already have an e-option under the Electronic Service Delivery
Scheme and other Government web sites. These include the filing
of tax return, voter registration, renewal of vehicle and driving
license and enquiry of job vacancies, etc.
We will continue to roll out additional applications, such as
booking of marriage dates, online sales of Government publications,
registration for sitting public examinations and booking of
sports and leisure facilities, under the Electronic Service
Delivery Scheme. We will actively drive e-procurement initiatives
in order to encourage Government suppliers to adopt e-business.
We will also develop an electronic marketplace for Government
purchases. Our target is to increase the e-option for Government
services to 90% by end 2003. This will inspire other stakeholders
interacting with Government to adopt e-business.
To speed up the implementation of the E-Government projects,
we will actively pursue the outsourcing option on the provision
of IT services within the Government. To date, we have achieved
our target of outsourcing two-thirds of new Government IT projects
each year. We will continue to pursue the outsourcing strategy
not only on new Government IT projects but also on the application
maintenance activities currently performed in-house. I would
like to appeal for the industry support and collaboration to
undertake the E-Government projects, and the community to embrace
the use of the e-options. It is only through our concerted efforts
that we will be able to turn our E-Government vision into reality.
I wish this year's exhibition another great success. Thank you.
- ENDS -
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