Press Release
United Nations Conference on the Effective Use of Information Technologies for Trade and Investment
The United Nations Trade Point Development Centre (UNCTAD) and the Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in cooperation with the Bangkok Trade Point organized the first gathering in Asia and Pacific of Trade Points 9 and 10 May 1995 at the United Nations Conference Centre, UNCC.
The main objective of this two-day Conference was, as a follow up to the successful conclusion of the United Nations World Symposium on Trade Efficiency held in Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A. in October 1994, to create awareness and promote the use of information technologies to facilitate international trade and investments particularly for the business community in Asia and Pacific and to study the existing Trade Points models in the region. Presently all major countries in Asia and Pacific have Trade Points and in some cases major trade organizations in the region are hosting Trade Points e.g Singapore Network Services, Trade Point Singapore, PUSDATA, Trade Point Indonesia, KV Info Technologies, Trade Point Bangkok, Korean Foreign Trade Association, KFTA Trade Point Rep. Korea, etc.
The conference was opened by the H.E. Deputy prime minister of Thailand, Dr. Suphachai Panitchpakdi with inaugural address by Mr. Jean Gurunlian, Executive Secretary, United Nations International Symposium on Trade Efficiency, UNISTE and Mr. Adrianus Mooy, Executive Secretary, ESCAP.
Over 500 specialist from Asian and Pacific from major private and public sector Information Technology groups participated to the conference together with over 300 local companies in Thailand. The conference contributed to the main objectives of:
- Provide opportunities to learn and exchange ideas on new and existing methods of utilizing the latest tools available in information technologies among government, private sector, and trade and investments-related organizations; and
- Demonstrating how information technologies can facilitate and assist in information exchange and dissemination in international trade and investments.
- Establish links among Trade Points in the region and their respective Trade Efficiency members and study possible methos of cooperation and integrating of existing human and technical resources.
- Interlink existing Trade and Investment information services in the region to the UNTPDC Web Server for the benefit of other Trade Points members of the Global Trade Point Network.
In addition to the representatives from various trade and investment-related organizations in the AP region, the conference was open to Information Technology experts, academic research groups, government departments, banks, customs departments, and related Trade Efficiency members. Further, representatives from the Trade Points, already operating or in the process of setting up in the Asia-Pacific region, namely in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Vietnam, also send large delegations and participated actively on the Trade point Pannel.
Trade points in the region are presently exchanging large quantity of information via the UNTPDC World Wide Web server and are increasingly creating their national databases and server capabilities. Trade Points are also participating actively to the establishment of subregional databases in the ASEAN region in cooperation with the UNTPDC-ASEAN Secretariat project.
Several technologies developed by Trade Points and UNTPDC were on display, in particular software solutions for the Electronic Trading Opportunity ETO System, Strategic Information for Trade Efficiency SITE and the Regional Investment Information System RIIPS developed by UNTPDC and ESCAP.
Special issues related to Trade Efficiency in the Asian and Pacific and its implementation for international trade and investment, Trade Process Re-Engineering and Reduction of Trade Transaction Cost and Time and technologies available to link the Global Trade Point Network were discussed by the participants including practical demonstrations from information technology providers.
The conference, the first one organized by Trade Points in Asia and Pacific, was a great opportunity to reinforce existing links among Trade Points in the region and to establish strategic alliances with information technologies providers. Several countries requested to continue this type of gathering on rotating basis among countries in the region