A declaration issued at the end of the two-day Asia IT minister's Summit in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad said the 31 nations which attended would set up community information centres in the region.

It said the region was committed to making information technology accessible to all, including the disadvantaged and poor.

Arun Shourie, India's information technology minister, said the forum also decided to undertake regional level discussions on the standardisation of technology.

"Everyone was very eager to share with others what they have developed," Shourie told reporters at the end of the summit.

The delegates who attended the summit included IT ministers and representatives from Nepal, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Tajkistan.

The declaration called for the setting up an Asian Institute of Information System Auditors.

It also said the nations would work towards developing local language technologies and adopt a code of ethics for collection, digital documentation and publication of cultural resources.

A number of studies were proposed for the construction of a broadband network environment in Asia, it said.

"Feasible mechanisms for sharing bulk bandwidth among Asian countries to reduce the overall cost of setting up international gateways for each nation will be identified," the document said.

It also said there would be increased cooperation between Computer Emergency Response Teams of Asian nations.

The next summit will be hosted by Bahrain and the subsequent one in 2006 by Myanmar.

SPACE.WIRE