"The Silk Road connected Asia and Europe in ancient times, and now we can build an Electronic Silk Road to link our three countries much more closely through the sharing of information," said Kenryu Tanaka, deputy mayor of Sapporo, Japan, on Tuesday at a forum on regional economic cooperation between China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

The forum was being held in Dalian City, northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Tanaka said "With the increasing importance of economic exchanges, we can apply information technology and the Internet more extensively and flexibly to the economic cooperation between our three countries."

The ancient Silk Road brought prosperity to the countries along the road through exchanges of personnel, resources and information.

"Now we give the name 'Electronic Silk Road' to our exchanges and cooperation with information as the core," Tanaka said. He added, "People can travel the Electronic Silk Road just by touching a keyboard and moving a mouse."

In recent years, the rapid growth of information technology and excellent experts in Asian countries have proved to the world the importance of Asian countries in the realm of IT, he said.

Information technology helps people find solutions to problems in areas ranging from biological technology to tourism, as well as in daily life, Tanaka added.

IT is a mainstay industry of Sapporo, a city on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. In February, the city hosted a meeting on the Electronic Silk Road, which was attended by IT enterprise representatives and other experts who exchanged views on the cooperation of Asian cities through information technology.

Tanaka expressed his hope that the promotion of the Electronic Silk Road can bolster cooperation between IT enterprises of Japan, China and ROK and increase the competitive ability of Asian enterprises.

Also on Tuesday, the second day of the three-country forum, representatives discussed the rejuvenation of northeast China and began a tour of Dalian enterprises.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2004)