Public-Private Partnership in Infrastructure Development

His Excellency Mr. Yoshinobu Nisaka, Ambassador of Japan to Brunei Darussalam, Deputy Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Senior Government Officials, Invited Speakers, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is a great honour to me to be invited to officiate today's seminar which hopefully could enrich everyone's understanding on how the public and private sector in this country can further enhance our collaboration towards a better and more prosperous Brunei Darussalam.

Towards this, I must thank His Excellency Mr. Yoshinobu for his initiative in organizing this intellectual discussion especially in bringing experts from Japan, Mr. Kengo Nizumo and Mr. Risaburo Nezu who would add our perspective on this topic.

I subscribe to the notion and practice of public-private sector partnership in developing an economy, and this has been proven to be successful factor in many developed and developing economies. His Excellency Mr. Yoshinobu has indicated that Japan had a shift in policy whereby the burden of providing infrastructure such as roads is no longer the sole responsibility of the Government.  The private sector in Japan has already been involved in infrastructural investment, ranging from roads, industrial waters, harbours, communication and educational services.  I observe this is becoming common practice in many of our neighbours.

Focusing our attention to Brunei Darussalam, the Government has genuine intention to develop the private sector.

I recognize that the early history of our 5 year National Development Plans which started in 1953 emphasised on the Government as the provider of infrastructural development such as ports, water, sewerage and so on.  As a policy in the Development Plans, private sector's involvement started to be recognized in the following National Development Plan of 1962 - 1966 whereby private sector's participation was promoted.

Specifically, I'm sure all of us would remember that from the 5^th National Development Plan (1986 - 1990) this particular objective of developing 'Rakyat Melayu' as leaders of industry and commerce has never been deleted from the list of National Development Plan's objectives until today.

We have always been asking ourselves, how strong is our private sector as our substitute in combating the danger of economic vulnerability when the country faces the depletion of oil and gas.

Economic diversification has always been our national goal and we have never failed in our endeavor to find for economic niches.

Probably there is a flip to the coin that Brunei Darussalam has been blessed with significant quantities of oil and gas which somehow has caused the local private sector to be involved only in small enterprises.

This phenomena could be caused by constraints such as lack of available capital, limited access to technology, poor market information and lack of entrepreneurs and marketing skills.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I believe that while the public sector provides the facilitative policy and the infrastructure environment, the private sector has to respond to that environment towards striving for optimal growth and development.

The Government has committed to continuously create the right public policy, the incentive structures and other infrastructure (both hardware and software) which can enhance the public-private sectors cooperation.

We want to realize the strategy of making the private sector as the engine of growth through enhancing their ability to identify and realize market opportunities.

About the same time last year, His Excellency Mr. Yoshinobu organized a Forum on e-Business. I wish to reiterate my Ministry's position on how important and dominant e-Business is to our life now.

The Ministry of Communications has adopted a national vision of 'Kesejahteraan Rakyat 2024', which is an encompassing vision to make Brunei Darussalam a country in which its citizens continue to live in peace and harmony with sustainable high standard of living.

To align itself to this assumed national vision, the Ministry of Communications has adopted a vision 'Service Hub 2024' which aims for not just the creation of a growing and self-sustaining domestic transport and communication industry but as well as making Brunei as a competitive, efficient and significant regional service hub.

This is particularly important in our efforts to create an advanced Information Society and transform Brunei Darussalam into a knowledge-economy supported by modern transport and communications infrastructure.

To realize this vision, the mission of the Ministry is the 'provision of a safe, efficient, accessible and secured transport and communications services" or SEAS.

This will call for the construction of physical infrastructures of world standard.

An outward looking policy and actions must be adopted to link Brunei Darussalam to the international community through the transport and communication infrastructure and at the same time bridge the BIMP-EAGA region to the rest of the world through Brunei Darussalam.

Among others, Brunei Darussalam will aggressively pursue the liberalisation of air transport by entering into open sky agreement with all ASEAN members to realize the creation of an 'ASEAN Economic Community' envisioned by ASEAN Leaders.

In this respect, it is envisaged that within the next 20 years, the general direction of the Ministry of Communications and its departments would be to continue and complete shifting its main roles from a combination of tasks that include provision of public services, building and operating infrastructure to solely responsible for policy-setting, regulatory and facilitation of business and industry.

Provision of services would be transferred to the private sector who is more business focused.  As a policy-maker, regulator and facilitator of business and industry, the Ministry of Communications and its departments would focus on providing a conducive legal and regulatory environment that is flexible, responsive, which can promote innovation and creativity.

As a reliable engine of growth, we have to ensure that the private sector is continuously strengthened and eventually become reliable in all aspects.

I believe that the private sector that we have at the moment have the capabilities in venturing into new opportunities.

We don't have to nurture them anymore but they can already become reliable partners to the public sector.

Service (information) industry vis-à-vis e-Business or e-Commerce is already becoming our economic niche and probably an answer to our diversification from oil and gas.

Big allocation has been provided to make our Government to be e-efficient and I'm sure this is also an area where our private sector can participate and specialize in.

This is knowledge based industry where if properly allocated, it would benefit our people, the educational institutions and the country at large.

The development of this industry will have direct impact on the productivity of our human capital.

The Brunei Economic Development Board in its study had identified the strength factors of this country which fulfill the criteria for a good base for FDI.

Basically we have sound macroeconomic fundamentals.  We have what many more progressive countries have to offer e.g. Luxemburg, Qatar, UAE and even Singapore.

I believe the answer to our economic diversification and to our future growth and development is for both the public and private sectors to synergise our strengths and weaknesses and WORK TOGETHER as a CORPORATION.