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Information ministry under coordinating economic minister
As of June this year there were some 69 million active Facebook users a month in Indonesia, placing the country behind only the United States, India and Brazil, reports said
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s of June this year there were some 69 million active Facebook users a month in Indonesia, placing the country behind only the United States, India and Brazil, reports said.
On Twitter, Jakarta alone contributed about 2.4 percent of the 10.6 billion Twitter posts made worldwide from January to March this year.
We might be used to hearing the overwhelming acclaims for the country as the capital of social media. But what is missing here is the link between information and communication technologies (ICT) production and ICT diffusion.
While the diffusion side relates to how the technology is being used and channeled in society denoted by penetration rates of ICT gadgets, the production side is more complex. It concerns strategies on how countries are able to create wealth and produce value from service-sector activities or ICT-intensive manufacturing.
With respect to ICT production, Indonesia is way behind.
Four blocks of international technology diffusion in 48 countries around the globe were identified by Hsin-yu Shih and Tung-lung Steven Chang (2009): the leading countries provide a source of technological knowledge (e.g. the United States and Sweden); an intermediate group diffuses the knowledge acquired from the source (e.g. Canada and Singapore).
The third group initiates the export of technological knowledge (e.g. Ireland, and Malaysia); and a final group absorbs technological knowledge without reciprocal exportation. Unsurprisingly, Indonesia falls within the last group with countries like Greece and Lithuania.
Transforming a country into a knowledgeable society thus requires strong and sustainable ICT development entailing both ICT production and ICT diffusion.
This viable ecosystem is strongly influenced by how the government designs the ICT policies in each country and is also determined by the hierarchical position of the ministry of ICT or similarly termed ministries.
In Thailand, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology is in charge of building the Internet data centers nationwide, accommodating smart card technology and having a direct link with the software industry promotion agency.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology regulates and develops the postal service, Internet, wireless, broadcasting and communications. They are also linked with production of electronic and information goods, software industry and promotion of the national knowledge economy.
In India, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology is under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. The office also has a very close tie with the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council.
The Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore oversees aims to achieve a nation of connected people with a better quality of life through the emergence of information and communication technology, media and the design and creative industries.
In a nutshell, these countries share the commonalities of job descriptions dealing with 'knowledge society', 'ICT industry' or even strongly emphasizing on 'software and semi-conductors'. These functions are now generally absent for the case of Indonesia's Ministry of Communications and Information, especially the link with the ICT industry.
While having good government institutions does not necessarily correlate with the growth of private ICT industries, we might find a stark contrast on what other countries have achieved and what we have achieved in ICT production.
Avago Technologies is a Singaporean company with joint headquarters in San Jose, California. The core business covers the designing and developing of semiconductors, custom chips and microwave components. The company yielded no less than US$2.5 billion in 2013 or about six times Indonesia's total cocoa export for the same year.
Infosys is an Indian multinational corporation that provides business consulting, information technology and software engineering making it India's fifth largest publicly traded company. The company recorded about $8.4 billion in 2013 or about half of Indonesia's total palm oil exports.
Delta Electronics has a main manufacturing activity in Thailand but is based in Taiwan. It is the world's largest provider of switching power supplies, industrial automation and renewable energy solutions. They enjoyed about $6 billion in 2013 or 40 percent of Indonesia's total exports in electrical apparatus, measuring instruments and optics.
Lastly, China's famed Huawei and ZTE are among the world's biggest ICT companies. Huawei is the world's largest telecom equipment maker owning the largest market share in terms of the mobile soft switches products.
Similarly, ZTE produces wireless and data telecommunications gear and telecommunications software. Currently, the company is also among the top ten Smartphone manufacturers globally.
With the total revenues of both companies reaching about $40 billion, they recorded one-third of Indonesia's total manufacturing exports in 2013.
Quite different from other countries, the Communications and Information Ministry, now led by Minister Rudiantara, falls under the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister.
The mission of the ministry aims at 'improving adequacy of the information society and providing bureaucratic communication services with a high moral integrity'. While this seems to be quite normative, it well resembles the 'umbrella' of the vision stated by the parent coordinating ministry.
The Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister set the goals concerning Information and Communications to build harmony in society, the nation and to minimize social conflicts with the effective role of mass and communication media.
Clearly there is neither a discussion on technology (semiconductor, knowledge society, etc.) nor how to link the ministry with the ICT and technology-related manufacturing industry.
Unsurprisingly, our ICT production still struggles to have a strong foundation, necessary for the absorption of local content and the creative industry.
Therefore, positioning the Ministry of Communication and Information under the Coordinating Economic Ministry might be more effective.
The focus of work would then shift from the likes of censoring pornographic content towards increasing the multi-factor productivity of ICT sector; maintaining the competitiveness of our telecommunication industry and building a stronger link with the ICT manufacturing to involve them in the global innovation system and value chains. These tasks are more or less what ICT ministries have to tackle in other countries.
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The writer, who obtained his PhD in technology management and economics at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, is an ICT industry analyst who lives in Seville, Spain.
