Korea and Serbia have agreed to share their experiences and technologies concerning online government services.

Minister of the Interior Hong Yun-sik met with Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Kori Udovicki in Seoul on March 16 where they signed a memorandum of understanding covering a partnership on e-government, said the ministry.

As part of the agreed partnership, the two countries will exchange specialists and share good examples of providing government services online, all while working on increasing Serbia's capacity for the development and management of such e-government services.

The agreement was suggested by Serbia, as the European nation is working on developing its e-government services. The government is working on reforming its economic structure and cutting down on public sector manpower, all while working on adopting more mobile technologies in the government.

"Being in the initial stages of development, we, Serbia, want to build an inclusive partnership to develop an e-government with Korea, a nation that has leading experience and great achievements in this field," the Serbian deputy prime minister said.



Korea's system of online government services is regarded as one of the world's best, as seen from the fact that Korea topped the United Nations e-Government Survey for three consecutive years in a row. To develop a better and more efficient online system of government services, the Korean government has now adopted a cloud computing system covering the entire government. Up until now, the government has only been running the service as a pilot program and only at the Ministry of the Interior.

Through such network-based computing, staff who used to save data to a physical hard drive on a desktop computer will now be able to save their data on the network. This will allow them to share and use the saved data, transcending the walls and silos between different divisions and organization, and allowing them to work efficiently without any constraint of location. The cloud will be customized for mobile computers, including smartphones and tablets, to help staff access their data at anytime and at any place.

Finally, after the Ministry of Personnel Management joined on March 14, now 20 more ministries and government branches, including the Office for Government Policy Coordination, will join the network and the entire government will be covered by next year.

By Chang Iou-chung
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photos: Ministry of the Interior
icchang@korea.kr