VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - Preparations at the media center that will accommodate journalists covering the 43rd ASEAN Summit in Jakarta have reached 95 percent completion, according to the Communication and Informatics Ministry.

"We would like to announce that the preparations (for the media center) are 95 percent complete ," Usman Kansong, Director General of Information and Public Communication at the ministry, said in a statement received here on Friday.

Kansong made the statement after inspecting the media center at the Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) along with Communication and Informatics Minister Budi Arie Setiadi on Thursday (August 31).

The ministry is providing essential facilities and managing the media center to support the ASEAN Summit, which will be the second summit to take place under Indonesia's chairmanship of the bloc this year.

According to Kansong, the media center will operate from September 2–8 and have a total capacity of up to 2.5 thousand people to ensure adequate accommodation for as many as 1.3 thousand people who have registered to cover the summit.

He further noted that the number of journalists covering the summit is expected to increase to 1.5 thousand to 2 thousand and will include 80 official journalists from South Korea and 100 from China.

Furthermore, Kansong affirmed that at the media center, journalists will be provided with high-speed internet connection with a bandwidth capacity of 10 gigabits per second to support their work during the summit.

If internet traffic increases during the summit, the ministry will coordinate with state-owned telecommunications company PT Telkom to boost the bandwidth capacity, he informed.

"We have prepared mitigation measures to ensure that all colleagues (journalists) can comfortably work, write, as well as send pictures and scripts to their respective media," he emphasized.

Kansong said that the ministry is working with the National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN) to ensure cybersecurity and emulating the collaboration established when Indonesia hosted the G20 Summit last year.

"The Ministry and BSSN are collaborating to carry out penetration tests in order to identify which sector needs cybersecurity fortification," he added. (Antaranews)