MOIS to extend support for Brunei’s e-government establishment project by 2024

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) will continue to support Brunei’s e-government establishment project, which has been conducted since 2010, by 2024.

Chin Young, Minister of the Interior and Safety, and Abdul Mutalib Yusof, Minister for Transport and Infocommunications of Brunei Darussalam, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on e-government between Korea and Brunei on November 24 at the Blue House.

The MOU signing ceremony was joined by President Moon Jae-in and His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam who had the Korea-Brunei summit.

The existing MOU, which was signed between MOIS and the Prime Minister’s Office of Brunei in August 2010 and expired in August 2015, was extended for another five years at the signing ceremony.

Under the existing MOU, Korea offered consulting to Brunei’s government data center establishment project, worth of KRW 3 billion. As Brunei requested for the renewal of MOU in March 2016, the two countries had a working-level consultation.

With the renewed MOU, MOIS will support the e-government establishment project of Brunei by 2024.

Whereas the scope of cooperation under the existing MOU was mainly about general cooperation such as ICT consulting, support for the establishment of national informatization plan and invitational training, the renewed MOU expanded the scope of cooperation to sharing data opening policies and experiences for allowing the private sector to use public data.

Moreover, the two ministries will conduct joint research on delivering AI-based public services that can provide information that the public needs without the help of public officials. And, the two ministries agreed to hold seminar, joint forum, expert meeting and invitational training through various cooperation channels such as sending digital government delegations and advisors from Korea’s National IT Industry Promotion Agency.

Minister Chin Young noted that “As the long-discussed MOU on e-government can now bear fruits, I hope digital governments of our two countries will take another leap forward.” “By sharing experiences of Korea that topped OECD’s OUR Data Index for three times in a row, we would like to contribute to further developing e-government of Brunei,” he added.