RM: The government has a number of initiatives to develop the local IT industry. CTM is also involved in an initiative called 'Digital Campus'. Through CTM's high-speed network, the firm has built an IT community for schools to share virtual resources. With a renewed interest in e-learning, collaboration between schools, students, teachers and parents are tremendously important. Hopefully through the support of the educational institutions, CTM and the government can create a renewed interest in technology among younger generations.

Another recent project at CTM was the establishment of a convergent portal, which incorporates all the services within CTM. It also provides different channels to interact with our customers, allowing them to learn about our services, to register for promotion and conduct e-business. It's a true converged portal and took us significant effort and investment to implement it.

CWHK: After being in Macau and growing with its IT industry for so many years, how do you see the gaming industry's impacted the IT industry?

RM: There are signs of renewed interest in IT recently. But they are still very weak signs, as the shortage of talent remains a problem. The situation has gone worse with the liberalization of the gambling industry, because the demand for talent is now much higher than what the market can offer.

Gaming was and will always be important for Macau, but it should not be a hindrance to other developments. We also need to recognize that a sustainable economy needs to be supported by more than a single vertical industry.