The Ministry of Information and Communication and the National Computerization Agency have published the '2006 National Informatization White Paper'. The Paper, published on July 20, is an annual publication that describes the state of information society in Korea and also includes the National Informatization Index.


The Index measures the level of information society of50 countries. This year Korea was ranked 3rd. According to the White Paper, Korea was only 22nd in 1998, but rapidly climbed to 7th place in 2004 and 3rd in 2005. In 2006, Korea maintained the same ranking as the previous year keeping its 3rd position.


The rapid rise in the rankings is attributed to a steady rise in the numbers of broadband subscribers (1st), Internet users (3rd) and Cable TV subscribers (1st).


This year's result together with other international indices including the recently published ITU Digital Opportunity Index(1st), UN e-Government Readiness Index(5th), the OECD Broadband Penetration Rate (1st until 2005), and the Technology Index(6th) of the IMD World Competitiveness Report reflects the growing influence of Korea in the IT sector.


The 'National Informatization Index' is published by the NCA and is an importantindex used to gauge the level of information society of a country. It is an aggregate of indices of 7 fields (PC penetration, Internet subscribers, broadband subscribers, fixed line telephones, mobile telephone subscribers, TV penetration and cable TV penetration) gathered from 4 areas (computers, Internet, communications and broadcast).


Sweden, which was ranked 1st last year also took 1st place in this year's survey. It was followed by USA(2nd), Korea(3rd), Switzerland(4th) and Hong Kong(5th). Sweden took 1st or 2nd place in all fields except broadband subscribers. USA scored high points in PC penetration, Internet users and TV penetration. Swiss showed its strength in PC penetration, fixed line telephone and cable TV subscribers, while Hong Kong excelled in broadband subscribers and mobile phone subscribers.


The president of the NCA, Chang-Kon Kim said that the significance of this year's White Paper lies in its objective and comprehensive evaluation of IT in Korea, which allows us to identify and discover growth or development models for future ubiquitous society. He also explained that the slow-down of double digit growth rates seen in the previous years in many IT statistical data shows that the Korea's information society maturing.


The focus of this year's White Paper was on the transition towards a ubiquitous environment and identifying new trends in information society. The concept of Ubiquitous IT was first introduced in the 2004 edition. It has been fleshed out in this year's edition, which now contains 'u-Korea Masterplan'. In addition, many terms that used the 'e-' prefix such as e-business and e-learning have been changed to use the 'u-'prefix to reflect the rapidly evolving ubiquitous IT environment.


The National Informatization White Paper was first published in 1993 for the purpose of being a reference resource to be used by both the private and the public sector. It is distributed to public libraries, universities, public agencies and also sold in major book stores. PDF and e-book versions will be available from the NCA homepage (www.nca.or.kr) from August. An English version will also be published and be made available from September.