A three day (13-15 January) Asian Regional Conference on the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) began Monday morning in Tokyo, Japan, a press release from the Royal Nepal Embassy Tokyo, Japan stated.

The opening session of the conference elected HE Mr. Toranosuke Katayama, Minister for Public Management, Home Affairs, and Post & Telecommunications of the Government of Japan as the Chairman of the regional conference.

This conference is being participated by government delegations from 37 countries of the Asia Pacific, 26 International organizations, and other private sector entities and civil society bodies.

The conference aims to establish a common vision of the Information Society with issues of high relevance to the Asia Pacific region. This is the first Asia Pacific regional conference leading up the to second preparatory meeting to be held in Geneva in February, 2003.

Minister of Information & Communications and General Administration Mr. Ramesh Nath Pandey is leading the Nepali delegation to this regional conference on the invitation of the Japanese Government.

The other members of the delegation are Mr. Mukunda Prasad Acharya, Joint Secretary at the Minister of Information & Communications and Mr. Mohan Krishna Shrestha, Minister-counselor and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Royal Nepali Embassy in Tokyo.

Minister Pandey also chaired the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) / Asian Development Bank (ADB), session on “National & Regional e-development: New solutions, New markets” Monday afternoon in Tokyo.

The Computer Association of Nepal (CAN) is represented by Mr. Gaurab Raj Upadhaya, secretary of the Association at the conference.

The first preparatory committee meeting of the WSIS was held in Geneve in July, 2002. The World Summit on Information Society will be held in December, 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. (press release, Royal Nepal Embassy, Tokyo, Japan) nepalnews.com