The State Council Informatization Office greatly appreciates and
fully supports what the Development Gateway Foundation initiated by
the World Bank and the international community has been doing in
reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development, said Liu He
while addressing the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of
Understanding on China's joining the Foundation and the press
conference for launching the
China
Development Gateway. The full text of his speech follows:
President Wolfensohn,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
First of all, I, on behalf of the State Council Informatization
Office, express congratulations on the signing of the Memorandum of
Understanding on China's joining the Development Gateway Foundation
and inauguration of the China Development Gateway.
When I visited Washington DC last March, I was invited to attend a
meeting at which World Bank Vice President Mohamed Muhsin gave an
introduction to the Development Gateway Foundation. It remains a
fresh memory that all participants there at that time gave
consideration to how the Chinese government could accelerate its
pace in joining the foundation. Today, we are pleased to say that
we have made a significant step forward to make the plan come
true.
As
everybody knows, to promote the application of information
technology is a national strategy of China. But during the process
of studying such a strategy, we also have had to pay particular
attention to the risks involved. One risk is that the digital
divide, having resulted from varied understandings of the
knowledge-based economy and from problems rooted in government
institutions and policy-making processes, will widen -- furthering
economic disparity between developed and developing countries as
well as within developing countries themselves.
Accordingly, the State Council Informatization Office greatly
appreciates and fully supports what the Development Gateway
Foundation initiated by the World Bank and the international
community has been doing in reducing poverty and promoting
sustainable development.
Finally, I would like to express my confidence in the outstanding
contributions the Development Gateway Foundation will make to
narrowing the digital divide. Good luck to the China Development
Gateway! Thank you.
(china.org.cn May 28, 2002)