The new Thai government has set a target to develop the Kingdom to become "Smart Thailand" over the next four years.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Minister Anudith Nakornthap announced the plan this morning when inaugurating a seminar on "Smart Thailand": Modern Public Services through High Speed Internet -- in which executives and senior officials of all ministries and government agencies took part.

Group Captain Anudith said that the new Pheu Thai Party-led administration will utilise high-speed Internet to upgrade and modernise public services, targeting to cover some 80-85 per cent of the country's total areas in the due course.

Group Captain Anudith acknowledged that the e-public services mainly include those facilitating district offices' workloads on issuing identity cards for Thai nationals, household registrations and population census, as well as e-education, e-health and e-agriculture services, and that the public will initially access to the government's e-public services within one year.

The new ICT minister said that his ministry will work together with all agencies concerned to develop a common public database needed for launching the e-services for people in all Thai regions, noting that provinces where the e-public services will be implemented as the pilot project will be designated over the next couple of months.

According to the ICT minister, once the e-public services are launched, people seeking public health services, for example, can access to the services in their respective areas through high-speed online programs, particularly those in remote areas, instead of travelling to hospitals located far away.