India today offered the secure ICT products to ASEAN countries at competitive costs and also renewed its pledge to share “know how” and “know Why” as New Delhi is willing to provide long-term financing for buying Indian telecom products and services. Inaugurating the India Telecom-2017 here, Minister of Communications Manoj Sinha said that Indian Telecom companies are willing to share technologies and enter into joint production ventures to develop entire telecom eco-system in any host country. In the event organized to commemorate the 25th year of the ASEAN-India relations, the Minister urged the participating countries to ensure that Indian telecom products and services should become their number one choice as they accelerate the digital connectivity initiatives. Shri Sinha informed that during the 13th ASEAN-India Summit in November, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had committed a Line of Credit of 1 billion US dollars to promote projects that support physical and digital connectivity between India and ASEAN. The Minister said that both the sides have complementary skills, huge markets and capacity to develop new technology and products to serve the people.
Shri Sinha said that Indian communications industry has made great progress over the last decade and with an overall tele-density of 88 and rural tele-density of 53, India has the second largest telecommunications network in the world. Referring to one of the lowest mobile tariffs in the world, Shri Sinha said that India has already overtaken the United States to become the world’s 2nd largest Internet market, with more than 220 million Broadband subscribers and more than 450 million users, only behind China.In his address, Secretary Telecom, Shri J,S,Deepak said that the potential of partnership between India and ASEAN is indeed huge and specific areas like GSM, broadband, e-education, tele-medicine, disaster management and capacity building can be explored in a win-win fashion. He said that Indian telecom products and designs are more affordable, durable and competitive and Indian companies can also provide services in the most difficult areas.India has already committed to provide financial as well as technological support for projects that could include-high-speed fibre optic networks, digital villages, rural broadband, national knowledge network, secured communication networks and telecom training and skill development.
Addressing the Telecom conclave, Secretary(East), Ministry of External Affairs, Ms Preeti Saran said that enhancing connectivity with ASEAN is a priority for India and this should not only be geographic and physical, but also institutional, digital, economic and socio-cultural. She said that ASEAN member states should benefit from the institutional expertise of the Indian telecommunication and IT industry.TEPC (Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council) is organizing the two-day event with telecom ministers, senior government officials and industry leaders from Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei Philippines and Laos and representatives from Bangladesh and Bhutan.This event will witness more than100 foreign high profile ICT industry delegates from 30+ countries. The main objective of the event is to provide opportunities to Indian telecom exporters including SMEs and Start-ups to meet qualified overseas buyers. This event provides one to one meeting opportunities between buyers from different countries and Indian exporters who can enlighten them about their products and technology solutions.