India willing to provide long-tern finacing to ASEAN countries

With an aim to tap telecom market in ASEAN countries, India is willing to provide long-term financing for buying Indian telecom products and services and also renew its pledge to share "know how" and "know Why".

While addressing the ASEAN delegates, 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."

The Minister also 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.

Sinha informed that 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.

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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 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," Sinha added.

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.

Secretary Telecom, JS 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." Adding that Indian telecom products and designs are more affordable, durable and competitive and Indian companies can also provide services in the most difficult areas.

TEPC (Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council) has organised 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.