The 2006 Asia-Pacific Public Services Summit, jointly organized by China's State Council Informatization Office (SCITO) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in collaboration with Cisco Systems, opened today in Beijing.

The conference, which has visited Beijing three times since 2004, is entitled "Information Sharing -- The Next Challenge in Realizing Cross-Agency Collaboration." It has attracted more than 200 senior e-government officials from around the world to discuss the obstacles and solutions to building a public service platform aimed at realizing information sharing.

Speaking to the summit, Chen Dawei, vice minister of SCITO, pointed out that the 2006-2020 State Informatization Development Strategy and State E-government General Framework promote e-government as a tool for increasing government efficiency through the improvement of public service quality, the reinforcement of social administration and the strengthening of integrated surveillance and macro-control. He observed that since last year's summit China had achieved numerous advancements in e-government while gaining experience in cross-agency collaboration and information sharing.

However, he said, it is still important for China, as a developing country, to exchange ideas with others, as the country's e-government services remained insufficient to reach all members of society due to the evolving informatization process. At the same time China's experiences could greatly benefit other countries in discovering their own e-government solutions.

Mr. Renaud Meyer, deputy resident representative of the UNDP China Office, noted that his group fostered human development to empower men and women to build better lives in China. As the UN's development network, UNDP drew on a world of experience to assist China in developing its own solutions for the country's development challenges.

In recognition of the important role that Information Communication Technology can play in enhancing development, the UNDP works closely with governments, civil society organizations and the private sector in partnerships to ensure that the benefits of new technologies, especially in information and communication, are available to all.

Sharing is an important aspect of modern life and has extensive influence in facilitating social development. When speaking of tangible goods many people are actually referring to less of a share per person.

However, with information on the other hand, getting more people involved means more information for everyone assuming that data is being unselfishly shared among many. Mr. Thomas Lam, president of China Operations, Cisco Systems, commented, "Cisco is a company that values sharing. Cisco is glad to see people sharing information via the Internet and is eager to share its technology and past experience with everyone.

"Co-sponsoring the summit for the third time this year, Cisco is pleased by both the active participation of e-government officials and experts from so many countries and the acceleration of e-government business around the region," said Mr Lam.

"Cisco pledges to continue to make its contribution to e-government development in these countries and expects that these and similar efforts by everyone involved will lead to better, more efficient and more prosperous societies across Asia," he added.

This year's discussions focus on the fundamental issues regarding the implementation of information sharing. The summit offers participants the opportunity to build upon last year's talks focusing on agency collaboration and further development of the tools and strategies necessary for the advancement of e-government.

Topics include the processes and architecture for information sharing, infrastructure and content investment approaches, strategies and standards to ensure trust and security, shared service models for citizen services and internal administration, planning and managing critical scenarios for information sharing.

Key guest speakers are Andrew Griffith, director general of planning and reporting, Service Canada; Jane Treadwell, chief information officer (CIO) of Victoria, Australia; William Hioe, former senior director of Information Communications Development authority of Singapore; Larry Knafo, vice CIO of New York City, US; Yannis Pyrgiotis, former executive director and chief technical officer of the Organizing Committee of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games and Christian Rupp, federal executive secretary for the e-Government initiative of the Austrian Government. Small group discussions are scheduled to follow each of the talks encouraging interaction between the visiting experts and their Chinese counterparts.

The summit is much appreciated by e-government officials from China as well as other Asian countries. Speaking to the reporter, Mr. Timoteo M. Diaz de Rivera, commissioner of the Philippines e-Government Development Group, said speeches at the summit were "highly enlightening". "We have a lot to learn from the countries which have done well in the field of e-government," he said.

(China.org.cn by Wind Gu August 1, 2006)