The South Korean delegation at talks on the introduction of e-government in Uzbekistan. Photo from napm.uz
On 30 January, the new Korea-Uzbekistan e-Government and Digital Economy Cooperation Center will be opened in Tashkent. The centre will work on introducing into Uzbekistan cutting-edge administrative systems developed in South Korea, writes Businesskorea.co.kr.
Six specialist will work at the new centre – three each from Korea and Uzbekistan. Each country is to invest $2m in the project. On the Uzbek side, the process of implementing e-government systems will be managed by the National Agency for Project Management (NAPM) under the Office of the President of Uzbekistan.
The issue of introducing the Korean-designed e-government system into Uzbekistan was discussed at a meeting of the two countries’ heads of state during South Korean president Moon Jae-in’s official visit to Tashkent in April last year.
According to Businesskorea.co.kr, Korea has developed e-government systems for more than ten states, including Indonesia and Peru. Uzbekistan is the first country in Central Asia to apply Korean know-how in this sphere.
Electronic governance is the name for a unified system for interaction between the state, citizens and business, as well as between state organs themselves. The system integrates a number of different electronic resources: websites, databases and web portals. The goal of e-government is to facilitate communication between the population and state agencies, and make it easier to obtain information, licenses, documentation etc.
In 2016, the government of Uzbekistan announced that it would invest $145m in e-government infrastructure. 28 separate projects were to be included in the programme, including projects to extend the country’s fibre-optic network, create new data centres, increase bandwidth capacity and more.
