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Jakarta, March 5 (ANTARA) - Communications and Informatics Minister Muhammad Nuh said William H Gates or Bill Gates, boss of computer giant Microsoft, is expected to attend a Government Leaders Forum here on May 8-9, 2008.

"Bill Gates is expected to attend the Asia Government Leaders Forum in Jakarta," the minister told newsmen at his office here on Wednesday.

He said Bill Gates had on November 14, 2007 replied to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono`s letter inviting him to come to Indonesia.

"We are preparing matters in which Indonesia can cooperate with Microsoft," the minister added.

Microsoft Indonesia Director Tony Chen earlier said that his office would soon confirm the visit of Bill Gates to Indonesia to attend the forum.

"We will announce it in the near future," Tony Chen told the press after the launching of Microsoft`s news products, Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008, last month.

He said confirmation of Gates` visit would be made pending fixed dates of Indonesia hosting the Government Leaders Forum, an annual meeting of Asia Pacific leaders to discuss information technology and its application in various fields for the welfare of people.

The host country of the forum was to be decided this month. Five countries were tipped to host the event, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea.

Tony was optimistic about Indonesia`s chances to host the even due to the fact that the Indonesian government had policies supporting development of information technology. (*)

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