WCA July 2013

Strong appeal for wire Southeast Asia

Securing a back-up route Recently there have been a number of major outages of submarine cables, severely disrupting Internet connectivity between the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. EASSy and SEACOM outages temporarily wiped out Internet connectivity in parts of East Africa, from Djibouti to South Africa. Sea-We-Me-4, the primary Internet backbone between southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and Europe, failed at the end of March, leading to a widespread disruption of Internet services from Egypt to Pakistan. Since October 2012, the UAE-IX Internet exchange in Dubai has been operating as an Internet hub between Europe, Africa and Asia. “Higher connectivity can reduce the impact of submarine cable cuts for ISPs and their customers,” said Harald Summa, CEO of DE-CIX Management GmbH, which manages UAE-IX.

wire Southeast ASIA returns to the Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Centre (BITEC) from 17 th to 19 th September in Bangkok, Thailand. The trade fair provides an attractive focal point and springboard for local businesses and international companies seeking to broaden their export of wire, cable, and technologies. Organised by Messe Düsseldorf Asia, more than 400 companies will be exhibiting their latest innovations during the three-day event. As ASEAN prepares for further development with a major line-up of infrastructural projects in the pipeline, the wire industry remains strong through robust support from the region and around the world. Seven national pavilions and country groups from Austria, China, Germany, Italy, Singapore, Taiwan and the USA have secured participation in the event ahead of its staging in September. Recognised as the industry’s much-awaited trade fair for the region, wire Southeast ASIA 2013 will outperform its successful edition in 2011 with higher profile exhibitors from big international companies, approximately 15 per cent of who are first-time exhibitors. The mushrooming of infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia signals further expansion in the construction industry and sustained demand for related products and new technologies. For example, The Thai government is embarking on a US$67 billion infrastructure development to provide a new transport backbone. In the Philippines, the government has launched an estimated 30 major public works projects that range from road, rail, airport and water projects. Expansion and construction of underground rail systems and land highways will continue to be a regular feature on Singapore’s evolving infra- structural horizon while similar plans have been mapped for Indonesia as the country braces

❍ ❍ Photo credit: www.bigstockphoto.com. Three of the temples of Bagan after sunset: The Ananda Pahto, the Gawdawpalin Pahto and the ThatbyinnyuPlain of Bagan Myanmar. Photographer Master Lu

embarked on massive scale development projects, trade fairs such as wire Southeast Asia provides an avenue to speed up ASEAN’s development phase through the display of exhibits that acutely meet the unique manufacturing, supply and innovation demands required by each country to achieve cutting-edge deve- lopments. The combination of local and international exhibitors representing the wire and tube industries on the trade floor will showcase the best technological inventions in support of this. Visitors interested in attending wire Southeast ASIA 2013 should pre-register at www. wire-southeastasia.com early to avoid disappointment. Messe Düsseldorf Asia – Singapore Website : www.messe-duesseldorf.de

for large-scale redevelopments at its newly positioned economic corridors across the archipelago. The importance of these key investments in Southeast Asia will be apparent as the trade floor will feature leading product suppliers, equipment manu- facturers and export specialists who are eager to invest in ASEAN’s infrastructural deve- lopment. According to Gernot Ringling, managing director of Messe Düsseldorf Asia: “wire Southeast ASIA is the key platform for the region and industry’s decision makers to connect commercially whilst drawing useful insights on the latest technologies to further propagate their country’s infrastructural growth.” Noting that almost all of the ASEAN countries have

Extending network connectivity International carriers continue to play an integral role in providing connectivity, diversity and elevating the region’s telecommunications efficiency level when they formed a consortium for the establishment of the Bay of Bengal Gateway (BBG) submarine cable system. The collaboration was made official when the consortium members – Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) (Malaysia), Vodafone Group (UK), Omantel (Oman), Etisalat (UAE), Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (India) and Dialog Axiata (Sri Lanka) – signed the Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) and the supply contract in Kuala Lumpur. Reliance Industries Ltd – India Website : www.ril.com

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Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2013