With the 2005 Economic Leaders' Meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation to be held in Busan this November, the Preparatory Office for APEC 2005 Korea aims to use the event to boost the national brand through association with Korean IT capability. For this purpose, the Preparatory Office will hold an IT exhibition in Busan in November under such themes as 'ubiquitous' and 'electronic-government'. In addition to this, the Preparatory Office will create the kind of environment whereby the delegations, journalists, and corporate CEOs of each participating country can experience state-of-the-art Korean IT. In the following interview with The Korea IT Times, Preparatory Office executive director Choi Jong-moo explained the Office's agenda and the kind of strategies he hopes to put in place. Q: How does your Office plan to maximize the impact of APEC 2005 Korea A: We would like to emphasize that the Preparatory Office for APEC 2005 Korea plans to make the most of 2005 APEC hosting as a decisive opportunity to enhance the national image. Specifically, the Preparatory Office wants to boost the country's national brand by promoting Korea as a leading IT nation. To this end, we will strive to create an environment in which participants including national delegations, press corps, and visiting corporate CEOs can experience Korea's state-of-the-art IT technology such as WiBro (Wireless Broadband) and satellite DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting). Q: What is the ultimate goal of the Preparatory Office A: Above of all, our greatest goal is to boost the brand value of the Republic of Korea by assuming central responsibilities in APEC such as the smooth progress of each conference as well as effecting reform within APEC. We will annunciate our commitment to constructing an open Asia-Pacific economic community and contribute to the development of APEC by reaffirming APEC's direction as well as its role with reference to the Bogor Declaration. For your reference, the aim of the Bogor Declaration is to liberalize trade and investment among member countries within the Asia-Pacific region in the interests of sustained economic growth. The Preparatory Office for APEC 2005 thus wishes to make the most of this year's Economic Leaders' Meeting as an opportunity to promote Korea's IT capability as well as to publicize the IT and the convention industries. The Preparatory Office also intends to help realize the Participatory Government's goals such as the Northeast Asian Hub Project, the decentralization of government, as well as balancing national development. Q: How vital are the Preparatory Office's preparations for APEC 2005 A: As the host country of 2005 APEC, we are preparing a firm foundation for APEC in 2005 by establishing priority subjects for discussion in order to attain the best possible outcome. The Preparatory committee, whose chairman is the Prime Minister, regularly checks the status of each ministries' preparations and those of the Preparatory Office, whose president is the Minister of MOFAT (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade), and the Busan City Preparatory Planning Team. The theme of 2005 APEC is 'Challenge and change toward one community', which reflects the outlook of the APEC member nations. As sub-themes, we selected 'Reaffirming the commitment to realizing the Bogor Declaration', and 'Transparent and safe corporate environment'. What is worthy of note, is that we will promote IT in cultural performance events and IT exhibitions. Q: What's the agenda for the APEC Busan Summit Conference A: Under the theme, 'Challenge and change toward one community', the following 7 priority tasks have been selected: * Facilitating free trade * Fighting corruption * Sharing the benefits of a knowledge-based economy * Improved personal security * Smaller companies * Greater economic participation of women * Strengthening APEC reform and furthering understanding between cultures. Q: What do you think the economic impact of APEC will be KIEP (Korea Institute for International Economic Policy) estimated that tourism income would increase to $30 million during the single year of 2005 that foreign direct investment will receive a boost and GDP (gross domestic product) will increase by 147.9 billion won to 255.6 billion won. Busan Development Institute, by the way, judged that the economic ripple effects will be roughly 670 billion won owing to the impact on production, value-added, and income induction. Q: Generally, sense, what do you think the impact of hosting APEC will be A: As the largest international event to be held within the next 10 years, which will attract some 5,000 to 6,000 VIPs including 21 national summit representatives, corporate CEOs and journalists, APEC will provide us with an opportunity to publicize Korea to a worldwide audience. Through the leadership of our President, Korea's national brand will be enhanced internationally. Moreover, Busan will have the opportunity to emerge as a hub city of the Northeast Asian logistics/business/tourism/convention industries on a level with Hong Kong, Singapore, or Shanghai.