DITS discusses e-government issues with government leaders
17 - 04 -2002

The Director of Information Technology Services, Mr Alan Wong Chi-kong, shared with other government leaders in the United States today (April 16, Seattle Time) the experience of building an e-government in Hong Kong.

Mr Wong attended the fifth annual Microsoft Government Leaders' Conference which was held at Seattle, Washington, the United States, from April 15 to 17.

The conference was aimed at sharing the current perspectives and broad possibilities for governments to apply technology to the benefit of their economies and societies.

During a panel discussion on "Building an E-government Roadmap" at the conference, Mr Wong shared with other senior international government leaders the e-government development in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR).

Mr Wong said, "We are preparing to ride the next wave of the e-revolution. With the 2001 Digital 21 Strategy, the HKSAR Government is aimed at developing Hong Kong as a leading e-business community and global digital city, based on the solid foundation that we have established for leveraging information technology (IT)."

"The HKSAR Government is committed to leading by example in the use of e-business both in conducting internal business operations and in delivering public services to the business and community.

"We have implemented a comprehensive policy to build an e-government," said Mr Wong.

"Besides, we have set up a dedicated E-government Co-ordination Office to drive and co-ordinate e-government initiatives.

"We have also set the target for providing e-option, the option to obtain the service on-line, for public services amenable to the electronic mode of service delivery to 90 per cent by the end of 2003," he continued.

Mr Wong highlighted to the government leaders the Electronic Service Delivery (ESD) scheme, one of the flagship e-government projects under the Digital 21 Strategy for IT development in Hong Kong.

Under the ESD scheme (http://www.esd.gov.hk) which was formally launched in January 2001, members of the public can obtain a wide range of public services through the Internet and public kiosks 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

Currently, more than 110 public services are available on the ESD portal with secure payment methods.

Mr Wong said, "The ESD portal is one of the pioneer web sites that integrates both public and private sector services in a citizen-centric approach. It also demonstrates an innovative partnership model between the Government and the private sector.

"The open and common information infrastructure developed for the ESD scheme provides a platform not only for the community to transact with the Government on-line efficiently and securely, but also for the private sector to make use of in conducting e-commerce," he said.

Mr Wong also said that in 2001, the ESD scheme won the first prize of the Public Services and Democracy category of the Stockholm Challenge Award, an international IT-award programme organised by the City of Stockholm, Sweden.

"The usage of the ESD services and response from the community has been very encouraging," said Mr Wong.

"Citizens have used the ESD scheme to perform more than 1.5 million transactions electronically since its launch," he said, noting that the HKSAR Government would continue to roll out more new ESD applications.

Mr Wong said that the HKSAR Government had strengthened its internal information infrastructure to sustain the various e-government initiatives, and had ensured that the backend processes of the government on-line services were engineered to optimise efficiency and effectiveness.

He also pointed out that it was equally important to enhance the skills of the management and staff in the civil service and provide the necessary tools for exploitation of e-government opportunities.

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