NEWS - High tech firms to brief SE

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Subject: NEWS - High tech firms to brief SE Asia leaders

INTERVIEW-High tech firms to brief SE Asia leaders

By Chris Johnson

MANILA, Nov 24 (Reuters) - U.S. software firm Oracle (NasdaqNM:ORCL -
news) and other high
technology firms will meet Southeast Asian leaders this weekend to help
the region improve its
information technology (IT) industry, a senior official said on
Wednesday.

The head of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council business group,
Roberto Romulo, told Reuters seven top executives
including Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison would spend at least an hour
briefing the leaders of the 10-nation Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Sunday.

The aim would be to establish a good physical infrastructure of lines
and networks for fast telecommunications, improve IT
education and lay down legal and policy ground rules to harmonise
information technology industries across the region.

``The leaders have decided they cannot march into the 21st century
without understanding the imperatives of information
technology and the Internet,'' Romulo said in an interview.

ASEAN -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the
Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam --
holds its third informal summit in Manila on November 28.

The association's leaders made a bold promise a year ago to establish an
``ASEAN information infrastructure'' by the year
2004.

But little progress has been made towards this goal and private sector
and government officials now feel that the region
needs help developing the communications industries that are beginning
to generate a significant share of global trade.

ASEAN HAS LONG WAY TO GO

``We have a long way to go to catch up with the rest of the world,''
said Romulo, a former chairman of Philippine Long
Distance Telephone Co , who is helping coordinate the IT initiative.
``That target of 2004 could best be described as
'challenging'.''

ASEAN's problem is that it encompasses 10 countries with hugely
different stages of development and wealth.

Impoverished land-locked Laos and neighbouring Myanmar have little
significant telecommunications use or developed
electronic infrastructures, while Singapore and Malaysia have both spent
billions of dollars building high-speed data
networks.

Teledensity in Singapore -- the number of telephone lines per 100 people
-- is close to 65, but it is only around 10 in the
Philippines and close to zero in Laos, industry data show.

Information data represents only 6-7 percent of total telecoms traffic
in the ASEAN region, compared to about 40 percent in
the United States, telecoms analysts say.

``Leaders of the IT world will brief the leaders on what they see as a
realistic road map to the development of their industry
in this region,'' Romulo said.

``The challenge is how to get every economy in ASEAN 'IT enabled'. If
the objective is to be serious to get there sometime in
the 21st century, we have to start working very hard.''

``The attendees...will include the chief executives of Telekom Malaysia
, Philippine Long Distance Telephone and
others...and we will have a presentation by IBM (NYSE:IBM - news) and
Oracle's Larry Ellison,'' he said.

``It is a short window of one hour...It is a small step, but it is the
right step in the right direction at the right time.''