Busan IT Exhibition to Promote Korea's Image as an IT Superpower Korea has mapped out the "APEC information protection strategy" for the 2005 APEC Summit to supplement the e- APEC strategy, Minister of Information and Communication Chin Dae-je said. "In cooperation with the U.S. and Australia, Korea will lead the adoption of the APEC information protection strategy by APEC member countries this time," he said. The e-APEC strategy, endorsed by leaders at the 13th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Shanghai in 2001, identifies the necessary policy environment and specifies appropriate goals and actions, drawing upon the existing efforts of APEC. It develops a forward-looking, longterm and action-oriented plan by creating an environment for strengthening of market structures and institutions, facilitating an environment for infrastructure investment and technology development, enhancing human capacity and promoting entrepreneurship. In an interview with Korea IT Times, Minister Chin said, "APEC, a cooperative body for common prosperity in the Asia- Pacific region, is aimed at liberalizing and activating trade investment, as well as seeking cooperation in the economic technology sector. "In recognition of the importance of easing of information gap, APEC adopted the "Brunei Goal" in 2000, which aims at tripling Internet access in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of 2005," the minister explained. Noting that the year 2005 is in the middle point of time in achieving the goal, he said that participants at the 2005 APEC will check the broadband development principle and the plan to ease information gap between APEC countries. In preparation for possible occurrence of natural disasters, recently shown in the Asia-Pacific region, Korea has established a task force to effectively deal with the cases. At the same time, leaders of APEC member economies are expected to engage in discussions over ways to tide over possible natural disasters by using advanced IT technologies, including Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB)-based forecast of natural disaster. He also said that Korea will hold an IT exhibition during the 2005 APEC Summit period to introduce the nation's advanced IT technology and products to political and business leaders of the APEC member countries. "To help foreign guests grasp Korea's IT technology at a glance, the Korean Ministry of Information and Communication will operate eight exhibition halls with specific subjects and four corporate pavilions during the APEC Summit slated for Nov. 12-19 in Busan," he said. The eight exhibition halls are Highlight Zone featuring the overall IT exhibition halls, U-port Hall, E-learning Hall, Ehealth Hall, Robot Hall, Culture Contents Hall, Electronic Trade Hall, and Electronics Government Hall. Meanwhile, four corporate pavilions operated by the nation's major four business groups, including Samsung, LG and KT, will display products equipped with state-of-the-art IT technology, such as DMB and WiBro. On Korea's WiBro and DMB technology, Minister Chin said, "The nation's WiBro technology could be appraised as the world's best. For instance, Korean equipment makers, including Samsung, LG and POSDATA, already completed commercial products or nearly finished the development. "Accordingly, we plan to carry out a WiBro demonstration on a commercial service level at the 2005 APEC Summit, and commercialize the portable Internet service in the first half of next year for the first time in the world," he said. Commenting that the prospect for the advancement of Korean WiBro technology into foreign markets is very bright, Chin said that a number of foreign countries, including Japan, Taiwan and the U.S., are paying keen interest in the Korean WiBro technology. As for the DMB, Minister Chin said that terrestrial DMB was adopted as the standard of World Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), an association of digital radio broadcasting companies in the world, in December 2004. Thanks to such technological merits, many countries, including Germany, Britain, and China, are paying keen interest in DMB and pushing for a test broadcasting. "Accordingly, the prospect is bright for the European regions where DAB is activated to introduce DMB, which was adopted in July 2005 by European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) as the European standard and recognized as an excellent mobile multimedia technology," Chin explained. Moreover, many regions other than Europe, including China and Mexico, are showing keen interest in DMB. So, according to the result of Korea's commercial service, Korea is also able to explore new DMB markets in Asian and North American regions, he said. On the IT cooperation strategy with APEC member countries, the minister said, "Under the Brunei Goal adopted in 2000, Korea will strive to develop infrastructure, foster professional manpower and accelerate e-commerce in order to help residents in the Asia-Pacific region receive benefits of IT technology easily." For construction of super-speed IT infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region, Korea will push for adopting five goals and 10 principles, while leading IT cooperation in the region this time. "To this end, Korea will suggest policy directions toward maximizing accessibility and use of broadband technology. Along with this, we will prepare a principle to prevent spam and solve serious problems stemming from spam," he said. To promote mind of informatization in the Asia-Pacific region, Korea will invite high-ranking government officials, CEOs and ICT experts of developing countries to free mid- and long-term training programs. Korea also plans to build an information accessibility center (IAC) to help residents in developing countries make easy access to information, contributing to the improvement of ICT environment. "At present, Korea is actively pushing ahead with a special cooperation project to reduce information gap between countries in East Asia through dispatch of IT policy consultants, digitalization of Asia's cultural assets, and the technology exchange project between Korea and Vietnam," said the minister. Asked about the status of Korea's IT industry among APEC member countries, Chin said that Korea with 11 million superspeed Internet subscribers, 31 million Internet users, and 36 million mobile communication subscribers is regarded as the one which built the world's top-class IT infrastructure. "In particular, the nation's technology level in semiconductors, display, mobile phone, save media and digital TV sectors has reached the world's top-notch level, greatly contributing to the development of the IT industry," said Chin. He said that main factors behind Korea's success of informatization and development of IT industry are the government's powerful will, presentation of vision, fostering of IT industry, communication service economic policy, and intensive investment in strategic fields through selection and concentration. Accordingly, many APEC countries, including China, Vietnam, Chile, and Indonesia, hope to share IT policies and technology with Korea through conclusion of MOU, he explained. Considering Korea's excellent IT infrastructure and superiority of Korea's IT manpower, world-famous IT enterprises, including Intel and IBM, are also planning or operating IT R&D centers in Korea. Based on achievements made in the IT field, the ministry also plans to suggest visions for digitalization of traditional industry, fusion & compositeness of IT, Bio-Technology (BT) and Nano- Technology (NT), and merger of communication and broadcasting. At the same time, the ministry will make all-out efforts to satisfy demands by the global community, including the introduction of DMB and WiBro service for the first time in the world. In the meantime, the Ministry of Information and Communication launched the task force for preparation of the 2005 APEC Summit at the end of July, which is led by a director general of the ministry, in an attempt to make the Summit a success. The eight-member task force is in charge of holding an IT exhibition, establishing IT-related videos, and offering services of experiencing WiBro and satellite DMB during the APEC Summit period.