China And ASEAN Sign ICT Agreement

by Mary Swire, for LawAndTax-News.com, Hong Kong

16 January 2007

It emerged at the weekend that at the 10th Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)-China Summit, an agreement has been reached on a five-year plan of action (for the period of 2007-2012) to bolster cooperation in the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

The Plan of Action represents the implementation of the Beijing Declaration on ASEAN-China ICT Cooperative Partnership for Common Development, which was adopted in May 2005.

According to ASEAN, the plan covers key programmes and strategic actions in the areas of:

• ICT Infrastructure Development,
• Universal Service,
• Human Capacity Building,
• Network and Information Security,
• Trade and Investment Facilitation; and
• Inter-governmental Dialogue and Exchange.

Some of the activities discussed included the implementation of the ASEAN-China Superhighway Project, narrowing the digital divide, personnel training, development of pilot projects and establishing the ASEAN-China Network and Information Security Expert Group.

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