G8 To Seek Global Rules On Information Technology

The G8 nations are likely to reach the agreement as an "IT charter" when their leaders meet in the southern Japanese island of Okinawa on July 21-23, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The charter is designed to support competition in the telecommunications sector in a bid to achieve sustainable and balanced economic growth through information technology, the business daily said.

The eight nations are to call on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other bodies to speed up efforts to set international rules on e-commerce, the newspaper said.

The G8 nations will argue that mutual rules on e-commerce in the international community will ensure the security of online transactions and protect both consumers and privacy in the global market. But at the same time, the eight countries will call on each country to cut regulations in the telecommunications sector to encourage competition and bring down telecoms fees, it said.

In the planned charter, they will call on governments, private firms, the World Bank and non-governmental groups to jointly establish a new organization to counter the "digital divide" between rich and poor countries, it said.

The G8 are considering launching a website to back the planned organization and setting up educational centers in developing countries to back their efforts to teach how to use computers.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has said he would highlight the issue of information technology during this year's G8 summit in a global effort to bridge the digital divide.

"Information technology has a huge potential to bring prosperity to the world, but at the same time it also has the dark side," Mori said in early May during his tour to meet his G8 partners. "Therefore, the information technology issue should be the core of the discussions at the summit," said Mori, who will host the three-day summit.

G8 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States