The Electronic Government Agency (Public Organisation), or e-Government Agency, plans to provide cloud services and an app store for state agencies.

This year, the agency will invest Bt50 million to set up infrastructure to provide cloud services, including infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). It aims to encourage around 20 to 30 government organisations to use the agency's cloud services by the end of this year, said e-Government Agency president Sak　Degkhoontho.

Ten government organisations have been involved in a cloud-computing pilot project since early this year.

To provide the cloud services, the agency has set up the government information network (GIN).

"The agency is in charge of managing the GIN. We have a three-year roadmap to turn GIN into the [information] backbone for all government agencies throughout the country. We call the new phase of the GIN project 'GIN2.0'. GIN2.0 represents the integration of the existing GIN network with the aim of reducing the duplication of investments in information infrastructure," Sak said.

There are 160 government organisations linked with GIN. The aim is to link 1,150 government organisations with GIN by the end of this year.

GIN is an eGoverment and cloud service infrastructure. Apart from improving the capacity of GIN and providing cloud services, the agency plans to provide an app store for the government. It will pilot it this year before launching the service next year.

"Software as a service [SaaS] is one of our cloud services. We will set up the app store to provide software and applications for the government. Now, we have e-mail and internal electronic document applications that are ready to be offered in the trial period. To provide the full service, we have to work with local software companies to provide applications," Sak said.

The agency also plans to offer telepresence services for 10 government organisations within this year.

"It might be launched at Parliament first to deploy telepresence for government organisations to defend their annual budgets without needing to come to Parliament," said Sak.

The agency will work with CAT Telecom to invest in telepresence services. CAT will invest in setting up these facilities, while the agency will attract customers for the services. This year, it aims to have 10 customers including Government House, the Parliament, the Government Centre, the Public Heath Ministry and the Commerce Ministry, as well a mobile telepresence unit.

"Currently, we offer Web-conference services for government offices in 33 districts in three provinces in the South of Thailand. The service is aimed at making it unnecessary for officials to travel to attend regular meetings," Sak said.