The Korea Herald

지나쌤

S Korea, U.S. deepen ties on ICT sector

By 윤민식

Published : Nov. 14, 2013 - 10:00

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South Korea and the United States held an inaugural round of high-profile talks Wednesday aimed at promoting bilateral cooperation in the information and communication technology (ICT) field.

The ICT Policy Forum is a fruit of summit talks between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington in May.

The Park administration has concentrated efforts on boosting a creative economy.

"ROK (South Korea) and U.S. government and industry representatives held extensive deliberations and reached a broad consensus on a range of policy and regulatory issues, including cooperation on the creative economy, collaboration on ICT policy that promotes innovation and fosters the global and open nature of the Internet, cyber security, and joint responses to international policy discussions," the two sides said in a joint statement released by the State Department.

South Korea was represented by Vice Minister Yoon Jong-lok at the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP). His American counterpart was Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda, coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department.

During the forum, South Korea's Global Startup Center and UP Global, a U.S. nonprofit group dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship, signed a memorandum of understanding on promoting partnerships between the entrepreneurial communities of the two nations.

The next session will be held in Seoul in the fourth quarter of 2014, read the statement.

In a speech at the Heritage Foundation earlier in the day, Yoon emphasized that digital cooperation will play a pivotal role in the Seoul-Washington alliance in the coming decades. (Yonhap News)