The four-day Euro-China Cooperation Forum on the Information Society will provide occasion for a discussion of high-tech terminology held by Vienna-based International TermNet and China TermNet, led by the China National Institute of Standardization.

Members of both groups plan to convene a series of sessions to demonstrate how much the success of an information- and knowledge-based society depends on the creation of accessible terminology as well as on affordable multilingual information services and software tools.

"The emerging information- and knowledge-based society is international and global because it is built on information and communication networks, which cross national boundaries," said experts with the Chinese organizing committee.

However, they argued, that kind of society "must be governed by the concepts of `localization' and `personalization' in order to meet individuals' needs."

In other words, a successful global society must be multilingual from the outset, as individuals are deeply rooted in their "local" cultural and linguistic communities.

"Because of these cultural and linguistic differences, the development of IT terminology as the base of the IT industry is of essential importance," the experts said. "It is the core success factor."

The forum, to be held from April 16 to 20 in Beijing at the World Trade Center, is expected to attract nearly 700 participants, most of them representatives from big European IT firms, to exchange views on key developments in the IT sector and opportunities for cooperation with Chinese IT companies.

The event will also include a large-scale exhibition and lecture-discussions on mobile telephony, the Internet and electronic commerce.

The forum is co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry and the European Commission (Directorate General Information Society).

Xu Guanhua, minister of science and technology, and Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner in charge of enterprise and information society, are scheduled to sign a joint statement outlining future cooperative programs in information technology (IT) between China and the EU at the event.

(China Daily April 15, 2002)