Hyderabad: The Union Minister of Communication and IT Arun Shourie on January 12 would inaugurate the two-day Second Asian IT Ministers’ summit.

"Delegates from 45 Asian countries have been invited, but so far only 37 countries have confirmed their participation," S Lakshminarayana, additional secretary of the Department of Information Technology (DIT), Union Government, said today (Jan 9, 2004).

The first Asian IT Ministers' Summit was held in South Korea in the year 2002. It resolved to strengthen co-operation for promoting IT throughout Asia, he said.

The main agenda of the second summit is bridging the digital divide, standardisation and IT development in Asia, digitisation of culture, construction of broadband network and environment in Asia and Internet affordability, management and security, said Lakshminarayana.

He expressed hope that the summit would lead to development of consensus on a regional approach to co-operation and sharing of best practices in IT within the region so as to develop enduring partnerships and collaborations in the field.

Answering a query, Lakshminarayana said India was prepared to share its IT expertise with other countries if they desired.

Delegates from Kuwait, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Yemen, Bhutan, Hong Kong, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia, Brunei, Darussalam, China, Singapore, UAE, Bahrain, Philippines, Indonesia and Qatar are expected to participate in the summit.