The Fourth Annual Forum on City Information in the Asia-Pacific Region kicked off yesterday, with the aim to further promote cooperation in the information and communications technology (ICT) sectors in the city's regions for development.

The forum is claimed to be the highest-level event of its kind with the largest number of VIP attendants ever in its history.

Over 800 governmental officials, representatives from international organizations such as United Nations, and senior corporate executives lined up for the forum under the theme "ICT for Development."

Jose Antonio Ocampo, the UN's Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, pointed out that the UN has developed an online network for public administration known as UNPAN, which promotes innovative and efficient information management for improving public administration.

"I am very happy to say that the Shanghai Regional Co-operation Office for City Informatization is one of the most active members of this network," he added.

UN officials are also hoping that the forum will push communities worldwide to face the challenge of re-examining their policies for human resources development.

"This time it might be for quite utilitarian, practical reasons, but the re-examination gives hunger, poverty, disease, lack of education or gender inequality quite a new dimension... of wasting the major assets of the future," he said.

"Shanghai will continue to use ICT in the construction of urban infrastructure, and take ICT as the major force to prompt urban information flow via four main ways." said Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng.

The city will apply the ICT into the aspects: Governmental administration, such as e-government and the municipal information network; economic and financial development, like e-customs clearance; social life and urban community-building, like the social welfare network and e-medication; and urban construction and management such as intellectual traffic management.

UN Economic and Social Council President Marjatta Rasi pointed out that the UN's Task Force has focused its attention on leveraging ICT for achieving Millennium Development Goals by 2015, involving most countries and regions in the Asia-Pacific Region.

(China Daily May 21, 2004)