APEC summit to pledge increased Net access

APEC summit to pledge increased Net access

TOKYO (Reuters): Leaders of the Asia-Pacific are set to pledge next week that every person in the region should have access to the Internet by the year 2010, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said on Wednesday.

The group plans to double or even triple the number of people in the region who have Internet access by 2005, according to the draft of a declaration to be adopted at the Nov. 15-16 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Brunei, it said.

One focus of the summit will be how to strengthen the economic systems of each APEC member to cope with the information technology (IT) revolution, the newspaper said, quoting the draft.

APEC leaders are particularly concerned about the digital divide between countries that are IT-capable and those that are not, with its members stretched geographically from Russia to Chile and economically from Third World Papua New Guinea to Japan and the United States.

To narrow that gap, they are considering setting up local Internet centers, even in thinly populated areas of developing countries, to expand the number of people in the region with access to the worldwide web.

This will be the first time that IT issues have been placed on the agenda for APEC, where discussion usually focuses on liberalization of trade and investments.

Information technology is currently a hot issue in Japan, where a government panel on Monday drafted proposals aimed at putting the country at the forefront of IT technology in five years.

The draft also includes a call to resume a new round of global free trade talks under the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks next year, the Yomiuri said.

APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.