Cooperation in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has a broad prospect, a senior Chinese official said in Pinang, Malaysia on Thursday.

 

China and ASEAN embrace a total population of 1.8 billion, which generates the ever-increasing market demand stimulated by the rapid growth of economy, said Wang Xudong, Minister of Information of China.

 

China and ASEAN each have their own strengths in developing ICT and the strengths are highly complementary to each other, Wang told a forum of ASEAN-China ministerial dialogue with business held here in conjunction with the Second China-ASEAN ICT Week.

 

This lays a solid foundation for mutual-benefit cooperation and unfolds a broad prospect for the cooperation ahead, Wang said.

 

The Chinese government has all along attached priority to the ICT cooperation of mutual benefits with ASEAN and it will continue to enhance the dialogue and exchanges among the administrations, while actively involving all the related sectors like businesses, trade associations, academic and research institutes to further enhance the partnership between the two sides, he said.

 

The Chinese minister also raised some proposals to strengthen China-ASEAN cooperation further, including creating a better trade and investment environment for bilateral cooperation, actively promoting the mutual recognition of the IT products, jointly developing and promoting the applicable technologies for the communications in rural and remote areas, and actively promote the cooperation in human resource development.

 

He believed that the joint efforts by the two sides would bring more dynamics for "ASEAN-China partnership for common development in the ICT sector" and contribute more to the common prosperity of ICT industry in both ASEAN and China.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2006)