Our Company's Entry into Saudi Arabia and Digital Government Cooperation
Meeting with UAE Minister in Charge of Digital Transformation and Artificial Intelligence
Hosting the 'Korea-UAE Public Administration Cooperation Forum'... Discussing Government Innovation
Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min expanded the scope of sales in the public administration sector through visits to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Italy from the 3rd to the 9th of last month. In addition to strengthening cooperation with administrative departments of each country, he also achieved the outcome of supporting the overseas expansion of Korea's digital platform government.
According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on the 12th, Minister Lee formed a Public Administration Cooperation Team and embarked on visits to three countries to disseminate Korea's excellent public administration cases and broaden the scope of intergovernmental cooperation.
First, from the 3rd to the 6th, Minister Lee visited Saudi Arabia and the UAE, meeting with six ministers. The cooperation team participated in 'LEAP 2024' to support the participation of Korean information technology (IT) companies in Saudi Arabia's new growth policy, 'Saudi Vision 2030.' The Saudi government is intensively pursuing an economic diversification strategy, fostering advanced industries to break away from an economic structure dependent solely on oil exports.
Minister of the Interior and Safety Lee Sang-min inspected the site of the "1 Euro Project," which aims to revitalize vacant houses to address population outflow and regional extinction issues in local cities, in the Maenza area of central Italy on the morning of the 8th (local time). [Photo by Yonhap News]
Now in its third year, 'LEAP 2024' was held over four days from the 4th to the 7th, with participation from 1,800 companies and over 215,000 attendees, making it more grand than last year's event. At this event, Minister Lee met with Abdullah Al-Sawaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Saudi Arabia, and Majid Al-Hogail, Minister of Municipal, Rural Affairs and Housing, a key figure in the NEOM City construction project, Saudi Arabia's largest national project, to discuss strengthening cooperation in cloud computing, smart cities, AI, and supporting the entry of Korean companies into the Saudi market.
Additionally, meetings were held with Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef, Minister of Interior of Saudi Arabia, who urgently requested a meeting with the Minister of the Interior and Safety before departure, and with Mohammed bin Ali Al-Mannai, Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Qatar. Both ministers actively proposed the swift signing of a memorandum of understanding with Korea's Ministry of the Interior and Safety, to which Minister Lee responded that he would expedite the process.
In the UAE, Minister Lee met with Ohoud Al Roumi, Minister of Government Development and Future and Chairperson of the High Committee for Government Digital Transformation, and Omar Al Olama, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy, the world's first minister in the AI field, to discuss digital government, government innovation, AI, digital economy, and digital inclusion.
From the 6th to the 9th, Minister Lee visited Italy to commemorate the 140th anniversary of Korea-Italy diplomatic relations and held the 'Public Administration Cooperation Forum.' At the forum, key agenda items included ▲AI-based government innovation ▲innovation in personnel administration ▲ICT-based government procurement systems, focusing on Korea's advanced public administration knowledge, experience, and future strategies. Paolo Zangrillo, Italy's Minister of Public Administration, expressed in his opening remarks his hope to actively cooperate with Korea, which is evaluated as a world-leading country in the OECD Digital Government Index.
Minister Lee visited the Maenza region in central Italy to observe local extinction response policies through vacant house regeneration and met with Claudio Spelduti, Mayor of Maenza, to explore solutions to Korea's vacant house issues. Maenza, which has faced population extinction problems as young people move to cities, announced the '1 Euro Project Initiative' in 2021 to attract various people such as youth, outsiders, and foreigners to the village. The 1 Euro Project is a municipality-led initiative that sells vacant houses at a symbolic price (1 Euro) and requires buyers to remodel the houses within three years for residential, lodging, commercial, or other desired purposes, thereby facilitating village-level vacant house maintenance.
After completing the visits, Minister Lee evaluated, "Through this dispatch of the Public Administration Cooperation Team, we were able to showcase Korea's advanced public administration systems and experiences to the international community, and opportunities for mutual cooperation with various countries have expanded."
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