ICT Committee Call – Jan 24/25, 2017

Roll call

Welcome – Alex Feldman, USABC

- This is one of our most active and largest committees in the Council. We had a great 2016, and

we have a busy 2017 lined up. We accomplished a lot but don’t want to sit on our laurels—we

don’t only want to respond to problems and challenges, but we also want to be proactive. Our

2016 reports gave us a platform to talk to ASEAN leaders in a proactive fashion, and to shape

the environment. We will continue to do this.

- Want to thank leadership of our Committee leadership—Qualcomm, Oracle, Microsoft, Seagate.

Thank you for working with us.

Remarks – Julie Welch, Qualcomm, Chair of ICT Committee

- For this call, it’d be helpful to get updates from the Council team on priority issues and advocacy

from the last quarter, and to solicit feedback from members on possible improvements.

- On the idea of doing more proactive engagement up front—this will make it easier to engage

with stakeholders when challenges do arise.

- One idea that we’ve discussed is the need to develop a repository of agreed-upon high-level

messaging on certain issues that can be used by us all in our engagement.

Review of 2016 activities – Matt Solomon, USABC

- Reports

o Enabling Cross-Border e-Commerce Trade in ASEAN + Jakarta launch - April

o The Digital Economy and the Free Flow of Data: Advancing the ASEAN Economic

Community. Launches in JKT and SG (December), and Hanoi and KL (January). Launch

events included key government officials, local private sector, and report sponsors.

- Events

o Myanmar Innovation Roadshow, in collaboration with the US State Dept. – August.

Exploring opportunities to replicate in other markets.

o TELSOM – November, Brunei

Shay Wester, USABC – overview of TELSOM engagement: Joined by Seagate,

engaged alongside the USG delegation. We highlighted a few key priorities and

raised ideas for further engagement with TELSOM. TELSOM 2017 is scheduled

for November, but we don’t have a date yet. Will be in Cambodia. Previously

USG sent delegates from Senior Official level, but they want to send a higher-

level official who can engage with TELMIN. We’ll be in touch with the State

Dept. to see if they want to continue this engagement.

o Member feedback:

We did well last year. An area for improvement is advocacy follow-up. A key

area will be a pushback against rise of protectionist policies in Indonesian and

Vietnam.

Do we have opportunities this year to engage in APEC digital economy or

internet committees? Understand from MCMC that they’re heading Internet

Policy Committee at APEC—that would be helpful.

In Vietnam’s APEC year, they’re looking to work on cross-border privacy rules

and e-commerce. There are some dovetailing opportunities that will exist there.

o ICT-related SME trainings – 5 ICT-related events in 3 countries, in reverse chronological

order:

Laos: E-Commerce

Vietnam: Disruptive Innovation

Vietnam: Supply Chain in the Digital Economy

Laos: Digital Tools

Thailand: Digital Business for Cosmetics and Personal Care Products

Launch of the online ASEAN SME Academy in March. Will be a continued focus.

We are looking for more content—contact me for more information

- Countries

o Vietnam

Submissions on LONIS, GCC Decree 58 appendices, MIC Decree 108, MIC

licensing circular, and MIC/GCC letters underscoring “core function test” for

licensing, import/export of encryption products -- often alongside other ICT

trade associations (BSA, SIA, ITI, US Chamber)

Multiple meetings with MIC/GCC, most recently this month

Decree 72 letter (possible data localization implications) – November

o Indonesia

DVCs with Mastel on TV digitalization (with FCC) and internet regulation (with

FCC, NTIA, ITI, and WB). Looking to continue this partnership.

Submission on MOT 82 amendments – March

Submission on e-commerce regulation – June. Still hasn’t passed. They came out

with an e-commerce roadmap, but with the new Trade Minister, we’re waiting

to see what happens, and how to best engage going forward.

OTT position paper – May. Want to hear from members if this is still a concern.

Member feedback:

When we submit the comments—which were good—is the Council

following up with key staff as we move forward? If so, what’s been the

reaction?

o Matt Solomon: We’re always looking for ways to strengthen our

advocacy follow-up. Our colleagues in Jakarta are key to this,

who are best able to follow up with government contacts on

our submissions. The members also have opportunity to follow

up during Business Missions. As you know from working in

Indonesia, regulatory processes are sometimes opaque, so a

challenge to chart through their implementation which of our

comments are/are not incorporated, and why. On MOT 82 and

OTT most companies seem to now be directly engaged, so the

Council’s engagement has been a lower priority. If this is not the

case, let us know.

For certain priority issues in Indonesia, is it possible for the Council to

document the dates/substance of follow-ups for priority issues? You did

this for Vietnam

Would also be useful to track the progress of this engagement. We have

to figure out whether we’re expending effort to move the ball not too

much, or if it’s valuable. Some governments are more reactive than

others, so it’s useful to track that. It’s especially important when we

have the delegations go out. We generate a long list of “to-do’s,” so we

don’t want to ask the same questions and get the same answers each

time.

Need to work on local content issue. We had many conversations in

2015-2016—however, we have a meeting with DG Putu late last year,

and he was very open about ideas to incorporate new perimeters for

calculating local content—not just building factories. This was the first

time we saw a shift in this messaging. I hosted another meeting last

week with Council staff and AmCham and gave them a brief. We are

seeking to reengage DG Putu now. We need to track this issue.

o Alex Feldman – Rudiantara also expressed similar views when

we saw him last year.

o Philippines

Submission on Data Privacy Act – July. This was finalized in August and entered

into force in September. Is this still a priority issue?

o Malaysia

CMA engagement w/ KKMM Minister – August. Still postponed. It was supposed

to be raised in October, but it wasn’t. The delay seems like a positive indication,

but we will continue to monitor.

- Member feedback

o Is IPR on the committee workplan? Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam—counterfeiting is an

issue.

Shay Wester – The Customs Committee has this as a priority. We can discuss

whether the ICT Committee may also make it a priority.

o We face similar issues. The Indonesian authorities are concerned, which is why they put

in a pre-shipment survey, but it’s not working.

o In Indonesia, concerned about Data Privacy issues under GR 82. This is part of a larger

Data Privacy law that we need to track. The other issue is OTT. Something surfaced in

November that very few of us were aware of—a piece of draft legislation. We need to

watch this space and see what’s coming out.

Overview of 2017 workplan – Matt Solomon, USABC

- Overarching themes

o We reference the ASEAN master plans and Framework—but especially with regard to

the new ASEAN Framework on Personal Data Protection, it would be useful to hear from

you on whether it lays out a good model for data protection.

- ICT Industry Mission(s)

o Proposed joint ICT-Financial Services Mission to Indonesia - The timing is still TBD, but

we plan to engage in first half of year, before GR 82 is implemented in Oct 2017. Is this

something you would be interested in joining? We haven’t done an ICT Industry mission

since 2013, so need to gauge interest.

o Proposed “Thailand Innovation Roadshow” – currently postponed pending State Dept.

availability. Will keep you updated

o TELSOM 2017

We’ve received feedback that, as soon as the dates are finalized, we should

send out a save the date to members. Then we can work on securing the

meeting itself and the bilaterals. Is there anything else we can do to more fully

exploit TELSOM/TELMIN as an opportunity for engagement?

We also just received an update from the ASEC that another way to engage at a

regional level is to propose a project under the US-ASEAN Connect Digital

Economy Series, which could then be considered during the Joint Working

Group meeting in May

Another option we are exploring is partnering with ASEAN Business Advisory

Council on their ICT work stream. Meeting with them on Thursday in Manila. If

anyone has thoughts on partnering with ABAC, let us know.

- Promote the free flow of data and discourage new data storage requirements

o Country-level engagement, leveraging data report. Indonesia and Vietnam flagged as

priority countries. Let us know if you have ideas about how to best approach this issue

- Cyber security

o Request from BSP on technical trainings. They have furnished a list of proposed

technical trainings, which Ian circulated to members earlier this month. In addition to

facilitating opportunities for interested members, we’re perhaps more interested in

identifying policy issues for a roundtable or workshop

o Also in the Philippines, we are looking at participating as a Supporting Organization in

the upcoming “Protect 2017” conference in Manila on March 29-30. The theme is

“Innovations for a Safer Environment.” We will share details

o Member feedback:

On workshop at AFMGM – does this mean we’d be on the agenda as side event?

Matt Solomon – exploring models for how to best do this. May also be

after-the-fact deliverable. Depends on member interest and AFMGM

schedule

Alex Feldman – Council has joined official program for 17 years, but they

only want financial services companies. We think there’s a window to

bring ICT experts to that meeting, or put together another type of

engagement. Did receive request for technical training, and would be

grateful for more feedback. We need to figure this out in next 2-3

weeks. We want to put together an engagement on a single topic, and

cyber is an option. The AFMGM engagement is quite short, and we need

high-level representation.

If we do a discussion during the meeting itself, and then we’re also talking about

a workshop on cyber best practices before/after meeting. Do we get two bites

at the apple? A workshop and then reporting to the Ministers?

Alex Feldman – they only want financial services companies, but cyber

security has long been on their agenda, so if we can bring in experts

maybe that’s something we can do in our meeting. But we’re making

this up as we go, so we need your ideas. We’re thinking about a

workshop probably following AFMGM, but maybe alongside, where we

can dive deeper into these subjects. I would suggest doing a separate

call on this topic in next 10 days

o Also country-specific issues in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam. Any others?

- Privacy - Country-specific issues in Indonesia and Myanmar

- E-commerce – leveraging report on regional level, but also engaging on country level, such as in

Indonesia and Thailand. Any others?

- SME/startups - this is one useful avenue for engaging Indonesia and others—where we can have

discussions about how foreign ICT investment enables start-up growth, and also how restrictive

regulations also hurt local companies. Planned SME events:

o Q1 – Myanmar

o Q2 – Indonesia

o Q3 – Philippines

o Q4 – Cambodia

o Online marketing and e-commerce training in Thailand, to be scheduled

- Continued partnership with Mastel

- Resources: Repository of issue-specific industry positions and talking points. Will discuss

internally about how to best build this out and make it available to members.

Closing remarks – Julie Welch

Closing remarks – Alex Feldman