Korea and Peru are working together to establish an e-document system in the South American country, and Korea has committed 300 million won (about $200,000 USD) for a feasibility study to determine the most efficient ways to produce and distribute electronic documents there.

The deal is part of an existing e-government partnership between the two countries, which Korean President Lee Myung Bak promised to expand during an official visit to Peru in November. The feasibility study will involve the participation of several Korean companies.

Korea also held an “information technology road show” in Lima last week to showcase advanced technologies including wireless broadband (WiBro), digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) and Internet protocol television (IPTV). A Korean delegation headed by Vice Minster for Trade and Energy Kim Young Hak organized the event, and participants included the Korea Electronics Institute and leading Korean IT companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Broadband. The road show gave Korean IT companies a unique opportunity to hold information sessions for local businesspeople.

Korea has decided to supply and disseminate ISO/IEC20000 (IT Service Management Standard), which can effectively maintain and manage information resources, IT organizations, systems, etc., to meet the recently increasing demand for new information services. KATS plans to promote the ISO20000 implementation and dissemination project with investment of about 500 million won over the next three years starting in 2009.

Under the project, KATS plans to support establishment of IT service management processes and systems for small and medium-sized information system operating organizations. The Agency also plans to develop a standard management system implementation manual for substantial utilization at industrial sites and provide technical guidance.

For five major industrial groups, financial institutions, portal companies, manufacturers and public organizations, in particular, whose IT service ratio is high, KATS plans to analyze economic achievements following their implementation of the global IT service management system and identify and disseminate best practices.

ISO20000 is an advanced IT service management system that can respond most efficiently to future environments of the IT industry evolving to web service-based SOA, SaaS and Cloud Computing. Therefore, Korea should implement the system in order to become a strong IT service nation in content and software to build on its achievements as a strong hardware infrastructure country for high-speed Internet networks, etc. Through this project, KATS intends to transform the nation's IT-based structure into a global service technology structure and solidify an advantageous foundation in the new IT competition that can lead the next-generation IT computing industry.

In addition, KATS plans to enhance the domestic IT service-related business community's capability to respond to the international standard and actively support diverse standardization policies so that domestic companies can grow into global enterprises harmonizing with the international standard.