Singapore could help Bahrain and the Middle East develop its e-government and e-commerce sectors.

The Asian city state embarked on e-commerce 29 years ago and, as one of the world leaders in the field, now exports its expertise around the world to share its experience and help others learn its experience.

The country's Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) has even set up a subsidiary called IDA International to help do this and the organisation's chief executive officer Seah Chin Siong was one of the guest speakers at the Bahrain International e-Government Forum and the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre yesterday.

'We have been working on e-business since 1981 and IDA International is now committed to passing on the knowledge on,' he said.

'We realised at a very early stage the strategic importance of information technology and are now in the sixth or our master plans to develop IT.

'We started a little earlier than this region and some of the lessons we learned on our journey could be helpful for both Bahrain and elsewhere in the region.

'It is exciting for us to share what we have gone through.

'Because of our long experience we believe we can help with some of the best e-government solutions for other governments and point out the alternatives that are available.'

He said that they were committed to bringing this knowledge to countries across the world.

'Many countries are in the process of implementing e-government plans and what they need is a strong domestic IT industry that can work with the government to develop this and work out how much should be internally controlled and how much outsourced.

'To do this you need an industry development programme that is a continuing on-going process.'

'One of the things countries need to do is concentrate on manpower development and this is an area where we can certainly share our expertise,' he continued.

'You need to develop this base so that it can create enough economic value to develop. Consultancy is important and you have to take training very seriously. You need enough institutions producing a sufficient number of students with the right training both as end users, IT company employees or government staff.'

'That kind of training cannot be done overnight,' he added.

'You have to start in school and build on this in college and then in-house training to build the in-depth learning needed to push e-government and e-commerce forward.'-TradeArabia News Service