Thailand's Eastern Economic Corridor Office (EECO) and Chinese tech giant Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that aims to produce a digital workforce to meet the kingdom’s emerging needs and developing its position as a digital regional hub.
The digital talent collaboration in conjunction with Huawei Asean Academy (Thailand) EEC branch aims to groom 30,000 digital workers within the next three years.
The MoU was signed by EECO secretary-general Kanit Sangsubhan and Huawei Technologies (Thailand) CEO Abel Deng, and witnessed by Minister of Energy Supattanapong Punmeechaow and acting Chinese ambassador to Thailand Yang Xin.
Supattanapong said: “I am grateful to the EEC for cooperating with Huawei to contribute significantly to Thailand’s digital economy.”
“In addition to the MoU signing, I would also like to congratulate on the opening of the Huawei Asean Academy [Thailand] EEC branch in Chonburi.
“The four cooperation frameworks comprise – creating a knowledge base, experts and platforms; building an ecosystem that facilitates digital development; organising trainings to improve digital and 5G capacities; building a certification programme to create a standard for the target industries. This will significantly enable Thailand to move forward to Thailand 4.0.”
Yang said: “Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic downturn, we are very pleased to see that high-tech-led cooperation in digital economy and innovation is increasingly becoming an important new highlight of China-Thailand cooperation.
“In this process, Huawei has been deeply involved in Thailand for many years. It has made every effort to promote Thailand to become the first country in Southeast Asia to have commercial 5G services.
“We believe [the Huawei Asean Academy (Thailand) EEC branch] will help cultivate more talented personnel in communications technology management and professional techniques in Thailand, help Thailand become a data centre in Southeast Asia, and create a new model of China-Thailand digital economy cooperation.”
In collaboration with Huawei, EEC aims to organise digital development courses for students and IT-related workers to train 6,000 people within 2021 and 30,000 in 2024.
Kanit said: “The collaboration between EEC and Huawei through the Huawei Asean Academy (Thailand) EEC branch is going to combine forces which I believe would lead to digital transformation in all industries not only in Thailand but also in Asean to another level.”
And Deng added: “Huawei believes that the key to drive digital development lies in an upskilled talent foundation. We will proactively enable Thailand to become the ASEAN digital hub through this MoU and the Huawei Asean Academy [Thailand] EEC branch.
“Together with the EECO, Burapha University, all our stakeholders and friends in the EEC, we are committed to fulfilling our mission of ‘Grow in Thailand, Contribute to Thailand’ by being a technology-leading and trusted ICT partner, proactive digital transformation enabler, and continuous social value contributor, bringing digital to every person, home and organisation, for a fully connected, intelligent Thailand.”
The MoU is seen as an important milestone for digital talent development in the EEC to support the use of 5G technology.
Last year, Huawei helped organise digital training for government, enterprises, SMEs and start-ups for over 16,000 people.
THE NATION (THAILAND)/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
