Presenting the drafted electronic signature law to the NA’s ongoing 6th ordinary session last week for debate, Minister of Post and Telecommunications Thansamay Kommasith said the law was essential.

Members of the NA passed the draft following their one-day debate.

The minister said countries in the region and around the world are modernising and switching to the digital economy. Laos is inevitably part of this changing trend so the law, which officially recognises electronic signatures, is essential to support this change.

He described digitalisation and electronic products driven by the growing development of information communications technology (ICT) as an “effective tool” to hasten socio-economic development.

A number of services such as making contracts, trade, disbursements (money transactions), services, and tax collection among others have been carried out via the electronic system.

“The Lao PDR has already made use of such digital technology. More and more payments of bills are made via electronic systems,” Thansamay said, referring to the payment of electricity and water supply bills, and road tax among others via online banking. The Ministry of Finance will implement e-tax and e-customs next year.

Electronic signatures have has also been in use in the e-passport and e-visa system of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Many other state departments are introducing electronic systems to provide public services. Experts at the World Economic Forum 2018 predicted that some countries might stop using paper documents within the next two or three years and replace them with electronic documents.

By between 2025 and 2030, crypto-currencies are expected to be widely used and all economic sectors will be positively impacted by the use of 5G mobile applications inducing non-banking services.

Thansamay, who represented the law drafting sub-committee, said Laos needs to prepare its legal system to handle and support this changing process to ensure safety and security in making use of the electronic documents and signatures.

NA members welcomed the drafted law, agreeing it will give a boost to modernising services and economic development.

Parliament member for Vientiane, Valy Vetsaphong said the development toward industry 4.0 requires such a law to support this process.

Given the growing trend and its significance, NA members underlined the need to include digital and electronic learning in the school curriculum. The drafted law defines principles, regulations and measures to manage electronic signature affairs.

In recent years, the business environment in Africa has undergone significant change on the back of the rapid spread of mobile communication devices. Startup companies, including mobile phone-based financing service providers and digital business platform operators, have been a driving force in creating new businesses in the region.

“Japanese companies have traditionally focused on resources, energy and infrastructure when doing business in Africa, but I believe we should broaden focus areas by exploring new business opportunities with local startups,” Ishige said at a press conference at the JETRO headquarters in Tokyo.

JETRO believes linking Japanese companies with African startups has great business potential because the startups have access to vast amounts of data through their services, particularly on so-called base of the economic pyramid (BOP) consumers – generally defined as those with annual incomes below $3,000 (Bt98,340) in local purchasing power.

In Nigeria, for example, those with annual incomes of $3,500 or less accounted for 76.8 per cent of the population in 2016, according to a document compiled by JETRO. Japanese companies have mainly targeted higher-income earners, which comprised about 20 per cent of the population that year. “This [BOP] segment used to be invisible due to the lack of market data,” Ishige said.

“By working with the startups, Japanese companies can reach difficult-to-approach consumers.”

JETRO is currently selecting up-and-coming firms in nine African countries, including Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa, with the potential to become business partners or investment destinations of Japanese companies. These firms possess innovative technologies |in fields such as agriculture, |medicine and finance.

The report on 100 startups, which also have the potential to impact society, is scheduled to be released in February ahead of the next Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), a Japan-initiated forum to be held in Yokohama in August.

JETRO plans to set up a “help desk” at its headquarters where individual Japanese companies seeking to work with African startups could obtain information and assistance. It also intends to widely disseminate such information through its about 50 offices across the nation.

“Japanese participants in business in Africa have mostly been major companies, but we want to expand and diversify participants by also encouraging small and midsize companies to look to Africa,” Ishige said.

To do so, the ministry has armed itself with Ministerial Regulation No 11/2018 on electronic certification vendors, which was issued on September 6.

The regulation contains 14 requirements for the digital signature vendors, including a requirement to possess a local digital signature infrastructure and other facilities that had passed stress testing as well as penetration testing, which evaluates a system’s security through a simulated attack.

The vendors are also required to own a |system that produces and manages digital |signatures as well as a system that issues, manages and guarantees the security of electronic certificates.

Digital signature vendors must also be registered as an electronic system provider (PSE) as stipulated under government regulation (PP) No 82/2012 on implementing electronic transaction systems.

“Digital signature vendors that have not registered [with the ministry] will be producing illegal digital signature products,” the ministry’s information application control director, Riki Arif Gunawan, said in Jakarta on Sunday as quoted by kontan.com.

Marshall Pribadi, the CEO of Privy Identitas Digital (PrivyID), welcomed the regulations as critical to the business’ continuity.

“With the ministry’s close monitoring, the people need not worry about the security or validity of digital signatures,” said Marshall.

The ministry has recognised PrivyID as a digital signature vendor since December 7.

The study of global AI trends also found that China is attracting more academic talent than it is losing, while Europe, the world’s largest AI research market by its number of publications, is suffering a “brain drain”.

Dutch publisher and analytics company Elsevier carried out the study focusing on the three largest countries and regions contributing to the field of AI – China, the United States and the European Union.

“Europe is still the largest contributor to AI research but continues to lose publication share,” the study authors said. “The United States is regaining ground lost in the last five years. China is bound to overtake Europe in publication output in AI in the near future, having already overtaken the United States in 2004.”

Elsevier analysed the number of research paper publications coming out of regions in five-year periods over the last two decades. It found that Europe’s share of global AI research has consistently decreased.

Europe contributed 35 per cent of publications between 1998 and 2002, falling gradually over each subsequent five-year period to reach 30 per cent between 2013 and 2017.

Meanwhile China’s share has increased dramatically, from 9 per cent of global publications between 1998 and 2002 to 24 per cent between 2013 and 2017.

The US lost ground in each five-year period between 1998 and 2012; however the rate of publications rose slightly between 2013 and 2017 to reach 17 per cent of the global share.

“China’s artificial intelligence research has developed very fast in recent years, increasing its global significance within the field,” said Sun Zhenan, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Automation.

He added: “China has unique advantages in applied technology research and development, for example, in the area of face recognition. AI education has been receiving more and more attention in recent years, not only in universities, but also in vocational colleges, and even in secondary and primary schools. This growing AI talent base will result in even greater future development of the AI field in China.”

Authors of the report noted that China “aspires to lead globally in AI” and is supported by “ambitious policies and rapid growth”.

A net “brain gain” of AI researchers also suggests an increasingly attractive research environment.

Over the 20-year period, China has experienced a 0.1 per cent surplus in inflow of AI researchers, achieved through a migratory outflow of 3.5 per cent versus an inflow of 3.6 per cent.

The US experienced an inflow surplus of 0.3 per cent over the period. Meanwhile in Europe there was a 7.8 per cent outflow of researchers compared with a 6.8 per cent inflow, contributing to a net loss of AI talent of 1 per cent.

The study also found that AI talent is increasingly migrating from the academic sector into industry, and the rise of large tech companies in the US and China may contribute to the European “brain drain”.

Bringing the online shopping experience offline is Lumahgo Sdn Bhd in collaboration with Tmall World – a spinoff of Taobao – and lifestyle furniture retailer, Lorenzo.

The 5,000-sq-ft Lumahgo x Taobao Selection store is on the first floor of Viva Home Shopping Mall in Kuala Lumpur.

“We are developing a new retail system that caters to Malaysians, which will bring a new retail technology experience to local retailers,” said Lumahgo’s chief executive Fabian Kong.

Taobao x Lumahgo was opened by Lumahgo New Retail Sdn Bhd and endorsed by Tmall.

However, the store was not opened by Tmall or Alibaba Group itself.

Through the agreement, Kong said Alibaba Group would provide the company with tools such as big data that targets Malaysian consumers, technology and a platform for local furniture retailers to sell their products.

“We are helping Tmall World to sell the selected products in Malaysia for customers who do not know how to shop online,” said Kong, adding that offline furniture shopping still accounts for 98% of the transactions.

With the new virtual technology introduced, Kong said it allowed customers to visualise and buy the furniture online.

With this partnership, Tmall will promote Malaysian furniture to the world under a multi brand flagship store run by Lumahgo.

The strategic partnership was formed and witnessed by Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok.

“Our economy has not been very good in the past couple of years, but we have seen an increase in the furniture export industry,” said Kok.