2002 APEC Ministerial Meeting of the Telecommunications and Information Industry

We, APEC Ministers responsible for the telecommunications and information industry, gathered in Shanghai, China from 29 to 30 May 2002 under the theme "Leveraging Digital Opportunities to Promote Common Development",

observing that information and communications technologies (ICT) have promoted significantly the availability and dissemination of knowledge to the public on an unprecedented scale and made a great impact on the economic development, governmental activities and social progress of our region;

recognizing that with the slowdown of the world economy and the reduced growth of the network-based economy, the global telecom market and the ICT industry have been severely affected and are undergoing significant restructuring;

remaining confident that the future of the ICT industries is promising, full of vigor and vitality and essential to the continued development and growth of the APEC region;

embracing the APEC Economic Leaders' Declaration entitled "Meeting New Challenges in the New Century" issued in Shanghai on 21 October 2001, in which APEC Economic Leaders:

reaffirmed their commitment to achieving the Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment in the Asia Pacific by 2010 for developed economies and 2020 for developing economies;

further reaffirmed the importance of Economic and Technical Cooperation (Ecotech) in achieving equitable growth and sustainable development, welcomed the progress that APEC has made in advancing Ecotech goals and underscored that Trade and Investment Liberalization and Facilitation and Ecotech should be mutually reinforcing;

noted progress through the e-APEC Strategy and set the goal of building APEC towards a digital society, with higher growth, increased learning and employment opportunities, improved public services and better quality of life by taking advantage of advanced, reliable and secure ICT and networks and by promoting universal access;

emphasized the importance of sound economic policies and corporate governance as well as important role and responsibility of governments in shaping the legal and regulatory framework that encourages competition and innovation, with increased emphasis on capacity building;

acknowledged that trade and investment liberalization and facilitation hold a key to realizing the vision for reduced disparities and common prosperity;
strongly supported the launch of the new WTO round, recognizing that the current slowdown in the world economy has added to its urgency;

asserting our commitment to facilitate the implementation of the e-APEC Strategy, work hand in hand to improve economic conditions and open up a broader prospect for the development of the Asia Pacific Region;

aspiring to promote a sound policy environment, better market structures and fair and effective market competition;

reaffirming our commitment to the five objectives and ten core principles in the Seoul Declaration endorsed at TELMIN 1 (1995) as essential for the construction and the expansion of the Asia Pacific Information Infrastructure (APII) and the realization of the vision of the Asia Pacific Information Society (APIS);

emphasizing the need for economies to promote the development of advanced, secure and reliable information infrastructures so that everyone, including those disadvantaged by geography and income, can have access as soon as possible to advanced, high-speed and reliable technologies and applications of information and communications at affordable prices;

recognizing that competition has been a key factor underlying the rapid buildout of the Internet and encouraging continued rapid buildout of the Internet, including broadband access, and greater user within the economy of ICT, especially among Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and micro-enterprises;

noting the importance of the establishment of a partnership among governments, business and the academic community, and a new-type cooperation mechanism for human capacity building by promoting education and training services and encouraging innovation and the establishment and development of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and micro-enterprises and their participation in activities of the New Economy;

confirming the importance of life-long human capacity development, for all age groups and both genders, in terms of providing more opportunities for training and skill development, improving the awareness, mastery, and application of ICT for the benefit of the people in the region;

mindful that the rapid technological advancement and convergence of the broadcasting, information technology and telecommunications sectors, require sharing of information and experience in approaches to policy and regulation amongst economies;

realizing that the participation of developing economies in all aspects of telecommunications and information would be enhanced through effective sharing of information and human resource development;

underlining our commitment to enhance the multilateral and bilateral cooperation in the APEC region in improving telecommunications regulatory policies, information and network security, and human capacity building, in order to facilitate business development, social advancement, and the further development of availability and use of ICT;

highlighting the need for the development and application of ICT by encouraging investment in the research and development of new technologies so as to build APEC towards a digital society with improved public services and better quality of life through advanced networks and ICT for all;

focusing on the need to leverage digital opportunity for common development by exercising leadership, government-private sector partnership, policy coherence, use of market forces, sustainability, and scalability to narrow the digital divide, and recognizing the goals endorsed by Leaders in Brunei Darussalam in November 2000 to triple Internet access in the APEC region by 2005, and to achieve individual or community-based services access to the Internet by 2010, through pursuit of the e-APEC Strategy and the implementation of TEL Digital Divide Blueprint for Action;

appreciating the need to popularize ICT and their applications, advocate digital life, promote web-based applications such as e-commerce and e-government, encourage the application of ICT in traditional industries, and improve the quality and efficiency of the economies through the use of ICT;

regarding that the enhanced participation of and cooperation with SMEs and the private sector will play a positive role in the sustained growth of the information and communications industries in the region;

welcoming the work that has been developing in global organisations since the adoption of the APEC Principles on International Charging Arrangements for Internet Services in the Cancun Declaration towards commercially based and equitable arrangements for Internet connectivity, reflecting, among other issues, traffic flows, costs and benefits;

recalling the APEC Economic Leaders' all for strengthening APEC activities in the area of critical sector protection, including telecommunications, made in their Statement on Counter Terrorism at Shanghai on 21 October 2001;

noting the TEL's report on implementation of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/63 on Combating the Criminal Misuse of Information Technologies;

being conscious of the necessity for establishing a legal basis for combating the criminal misuse of information technologies;

being further conscious of the need for governments and the private sector to strengthen cooperation, information exchange and the voluntary transfer of technology related to security of information and communications infrastructure across the region;

highlighting the need to increase cooperation with relevant international fora to improve coherence in the work carried out by TEL and other relevant fora;

acknowledging and encouraging the effort made by TEL in its work on telecommunications market liberalization, mutual recognition of telecom equipment certification, e-government, e-commerce, interconnection, Internet charging arrangements, business and research models to promote greater deployment of ICT, human capacity building, security, authentication and the development and initial implementation of the Digital Divide Blueprint for Action;

HEREBY

ADOPT the Program of Action for the APEC Telecommunications and Information Working Group as attached as Annex A;

ADOPT the Statement on the Security of Information and Communications Infrastructures attached as Annex B; and

NOTE that this Program of Action and Statement on the Security of Information and Communications Infrastructures will contribute to the Action Plan to be considered at the APEC Economic Leaders Meeting to be held at Los Cabos, Baja California Sur., Mexico in October 2002.