Delegates from Argentina and Chile had a chance to visit Korea and benchmark its IT success stories from the 19th to the 24th of June. The delegates visited many IT organizations and businesses including the National Computerization Agency, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics. They also had an opportunity to marvel at the latest innovations in IT at the SEK(Solution & Contents Exhibition of Korea) 2006.


The Argentinean delegation comprising of government officials was headed by Christian G. Asinelli, the deputy director of the State Modernization Project, and also accompanied by the consultants from World Bank including Miguel A. Mercado-Diaz, the senior operation officer of Latin America and the Caribbean Public Sector. The delegates had a chance to learn about e-Government services of Korea firsthand during a seminar hosted by the NCA on the 20th.


From March of this year, the National Computerization Agency(NCA) and the World Bank had been working jointly to provide consultation on Argentina's SINTyS (Social and Fiscal National Identification System) Project. The project is an effort by the Argentina's government to provide a common interface and search engine for central, municipal and local government knowledge databases.


The Chilean delegation was headed by Thierry de Saint Pierre, the innovation director of CORFO, which works to promote the economic development of Chile, and was accompanied by industry representatives from 6 Chilean IT companies. The delegates showed much interest in the IT industry of Korea during an IT business forum hosted by the NCA on the 21st. They met with over 10 Korean companies and discussed ways to cooperate including the possibility of forming joint ventures and partnerships. As a result of these discussions, one Chilean company signed MoUs with 2 Korean companies.


Chang-Kon Kim, the president of the NCA, at the reception dinner that was held on the 22nd, welcomed the delegates and asked the them to continue their work to strengthen cooperation among Korea, Argentina and Chile. He also said that the cooperation with Latin America in ICT is a 'blue ocean' with much potential and expressed his hope that this visit would become a bride to further cooperation with Latin America.