C-DOT participated in the East Asia Business Exhibition 2005, held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 10-14 December 2005. The event was held concurrent with the 11 th ASEAN Summit. India, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand were invited by ASEAN for the first time to participate in the Summit with the objective of boosting mutual co-operation and socio-political and trade ties.

At EABEX 2005, all the participants had set up their country pavilions. The Indian Pavilion showcased its strengths in the field of telecommunications, science and technology, and also sought to project India as a great tourist destination. The Telecom Booth projected the exponential growth of Indian Telecommunications in the last one decade. The focus was on showcasing public private partnership in key areas of R&D, service provisioning, manufacturing and consultancy. Under the aegis of DOT, the Indian Telecommunications sector was represented by C-DOT, BSNL, TCIL. ITI Ltd., Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), Texas Instruments (I) Ltd., Tejas Networks India Ltd., Midas Communication Technologies, Alcatel India Ltd. and Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd.

The India Pavilion was visited by many VVIPs including the the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Mr. Manmohan Singh; the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. Junichiro Koizumi; the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mr. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Mr. Tako Aso; the Minister of Commerce, Industry & Energy, Republic of Korea, Mr. Hee Beom Lee; and the Chairman, Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Kyung Shik Sohu.

At the Telecom Booth, Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh was given a brief overview of the developments taking place in Indian Telecommunications. He was also demonstrated GPRS development board, ADSL CPE board and the GPRS wafer designed by Texas Instruments India. He was also given a presentation on the PAN African Network setup by TCIL in 53 African countries for providing tele-medicine and tele-education services. The Prime Minister evinced keen interest in this area and later in the day even announced at a press conference that India can provide tele-services to poor ASEAN countries like Myanmar and Cambodia.

The Prime Minister was clearly impressed with the rapid progress made by the Indian Telecom industry, as in the Visitor’s Booth of the Telecom Booth he remarked “ India can do it. This is the spirit which must guide all our enterprises”.