Senior government officials yesterday were promoting the development of the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector in the Kingdom, particularly the concept of digital empowerment among young people.

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, who presided over the opening of ITU Asia-Pacific Regional Development Forum, held in Phnom Penh, said Cambodia is a country that has more mobile phone subscriptions than the entire size of the population.

He said with about 95 per cent of children across the country enrolled to study in school, it was important to promote the ICT sector among those children.

He said new concepts and new innovation in Cambodia need to focus on the digital sector and Ministry of Post and Telecommunications should promote the sector because it is a new one that everyone needs to be educated in.

“Previously, we said education for all, now we should say strengthening of telecommunications for all,” he said, adding “all people should be able to receive those services”.

He said the IT and communications capacity and skills of Cambodians, particularly the younger generations, will be “a major factor for the future success of Cambodia’s socio-economic and cultural development, and our capacity to look outwards and to compete successfully in our regional and global future”.

The growth of mobile phones has been considerable in Cambodian over the last few years: in 2012 numbers of mobile and fixed-line phones was 19.7 million; while the year before the numbers were 16.2 million, according to report of Ministry of Post and Telecommunication for 2012.

The report added that internet users in Cambodia increased sharply from 292,000 users in 2009 to nearly 1.7 million in 2011, while numbers reached over 2.7 million at the end of 2012.