Minister for Information and Communications Mohan Bahadur Basnet has said that technological enhancement in the country is crucial to achieve the set economic goals of the government.
Inaugurating the second edition of CAN CommTech, a technology exhibition, in the Capital today, Basnet said that both the private sector and the government should coordinate to promote the domestic Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector to drive Nepal towards economic prosperity.
“As we basically gave priority to political agenda in the past, the country was unable to achieve anything remarkable in the economic front. However, there is political stability in the country now and leaders have been giving top priority to economic agenda,” Basnet said.
Informing that economic development and the overall development of the country is not possible without technological enhancement, Basnet said that stakeholders of the domestic ICT industry should collaborate to create a ‘digital Nepal’.
Addressing the event, Sanjay Sharma, secretary of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST), informed that the government has been promoting e-governance to gradually substitute the manual system in governance.
Similarly, Digambar Jha, chairman of Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA), said that NTA has been laying optical fibres across the country to increase people’s access to internet and technology.
Meanwhile, Hemanta Chaurasia, acting president of CAN Federation, said that the government should collaborate with the private sector to increase technological awareness among people across remote areas of the country. “CAN Federation is organising such events every year to promote the use of technology in Nepal and increase people’s access to technology.”
CAN Federation — organiser of the event — informed that the CAN CommTech this year has participation of 65 domestic and foreign IT companies like IT service providers, telecommunication companies, electronic security and safety solution providers, power solution providers, hardware sales and maintenance service providers, mobile accessories and products, internet service providers, ICT colleges and institutions and payment solution providers, among others.
The event has altogether 87 stalls of participating companies. It will also include various discussions, seminars and presentations of current state of ICT sector in Nepal, challenges and way forward.
Source: https://thehimalayantimes.com/business/can-commtech-kicks-off-capital/