Southeast Asia years from innovative high-tech sector – industry

HO CHI MINH CITY: Southeast Asia is still years away from developing an innovative high-tech sector, industry players said Monday.

The infrastructure is being put in place, said Rajeev Singh-Molares, Asia Pacific president for French-based network manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent.

But he added “I think a lot more needs to be done, and a lot more needs to be done in education, principally”.

He told the World Economic Forum on East Asia that a culture of entrepreneurial innovation is more important than low labour costs or other economic incentives.

“You could argue that we’re seeing that perhaps in Singapore, perhaps to a lesser degree in Kuala Lumpur, but we have yet to see it, I think, in scale in places like Indonesia, in Vietnam, in Thailand,” he said.

Along with the physical requirements like high-tech research institutes, countries in the region need to create an environment of “entrepreneurial leadership”, agreed Francois Guibert, executive vice-president of Singapore chipmaker STMicroelectronics.

“There is no reason why the success of Korea and Taiwan cannot be duplicated in Vietnam, in Indonesia, in the Phililppines, in India and China,” he said.

“We need to see in the next five, 10 years.”

Singh-Molares said China and India could increasingly emerge as innovators in network technology and in devices such as handsets and tablets. –AFP