The Korean government signed an agreement with representatives from Latin America and the Caribbean to expand their ties in telecommunications and related areas, the two sides on Tuesday.

The Science Ministry on the day held the first ICT ministerial level meeting with representatives from 11 nations in Central and South America.

The two sides agreed to hold the summits every two years to discuss how to collectively advance toward creating universal and affordable broadband networks.

“We agreed that there is a need to have regional summits such as the (current conference) once every two years,” the representatives said in the agreement.
Korea, as the world’s most wired nation and reputed to be steeped in high-tech telecom and IT technologies, has taken initiatives to share its knowledge and know-how with other countries.

This is mostly based on a belief that telecommunications and broadband are “a strategic sector for the promotion of social integration, economic growth, and improved productivity,” as the representatives noted.

They cited data showing countries that expanded broadband service by 10 percent saw their GDP and productivity grow by 3.19 percent and 2.61 percent, respectively.

Developing better broadband services and infrastructure, therefore, would help bridge the social and technological divide of Latin America and the Caribbean regions, while promoting South-South trade, the two sides said.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)