KUALA LUMPUR: The government will use smart card technology to better manage and facilitate the distribution of subsidies to agriculture workers, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

He said the country had for the last few years worked on solutions based on information and communications technology (ICT) to ease problems and bottlenecks in the agriculture supply chain.

"One such solution is a technology that makes available real-time market information to farmers, fishermen and smallholders through the Internet.

"I am certain there are many other problems in other parts of the world that can be solved through the creative use of ICT," he said in his keynote address at the opening of the 16th World Congress on Information Technology 2008.

Abdullah said Malaysia would continue to take steps, including investing further in ICT infrastructure and services, to raise its competitiveness and put it on the fast track to the information age.
He said ICT was no longer a luxury and increasingly becoming a necessity.

Malaysia will soon launch its broadband initiative, which will reach 50 per cent of the households by 2010, up from 15.5 per cent last year.

Abdullah said as part of the effort to increase broadband connectivity, Klang Valley residents would be supplied with high-speed mobile broadband services using WiMax technology under the Wireless@KL initiative.

A comprehensive e-payment facility involving more than 100 government agencies would also be launched, he said.

"We thus expect to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the public service delivery system, which is a key agenda of my government."

Touching on the ICT industry, Abdullah said MSC Malaysia was now home to more than 2,000 companies, including local companies and multinationals, of which about 100 were leading global companies in 2007.

He said turnover of the companies last year was approximately RM13.6 billion, which was an increase of more than 24 per cent compared with 2002.

"MSC Malaysia-status companies are also exporting more with export figures for last year reaching a reported RM4.9 billion. This represents an increase of more than 40 per cent compared with 2002."

Abdullah said research and development activity was on the rise.

Last year, he said, RM800 million was spent by MSC Malaysia-status companies on research and development, more than three times the amount spent in 2002.