MIC News OECD IT Minister Meeting to Be Held in Seoul Roh Jun-hyong, Minister of Information and Communication, said on October 10: "In order to induce the Second OECD IT Minister Meeting the three countries - Korea, Canada, and Portugal - have waged a fierce competition until last week. As a result, Seoul has luckily been decided as a venue for the meeting." He has tried to express the significance of this international IT meeting by comparing this diplomatic achievement to unanimously electing the Korean Minister Ban Ki-moon as next UN secretary general. The first OECD ministerial meeting was held under the subject of informatization in Ottawa, Canada in 1998. In the first meeting more than 1,000 persons participated including the international organizations APEC and ITU, NGOs and CEOs of many private enterprises. Due to the scale and characteristics of this international meeting, Korea is expected to have a good opportunity to receive worldwide recognition as an IT-based nation and also to take an active role in various discussions. MIC Minister Roh went on to say: "The Second OECD IT Minister Meeting is scheduled to be opened between April and June, 2008. Under the subject of Future of the Internet each nation's IT leaders will actively participate in the discussions. The participants will intensively deal with such topics as what impact the Internet will have on our society, our politics, and our economy. From next month, the government will start to make preparations for the meeting." To this end, the MIC is making consultations with the OECD secretariat while forming an exclusive organization for the 2008 OECD IT meeting. This exclusive organization is to make preparations for the meeting, which will include the confirmation of agendas. In consideration of the fact that a large number of IT ministers from many countries will participate in the meeting, the MIC plans to invite as many CEOs of global companies as possible, so that this will be a truly global IT leaders' meeting. An official of the MIC said, "To make this meeting more fruitful one, the MIC will make arrangements for the themes to be discussed, consequently making it possible to present 'Seoul IT Declaration' to all the nations of the world."