Opening Speech by Mr Y C Cheng, Acting Director of Information Technology Services at the 17th Meeting of the Ideographic Rapporteur Group of the International Organization for Standardization
18 June 2001

Mr Zhang, Delegates,

Good morning. It is an honour and a great pleasure for me to open this 17th meeting of the Ideographic Rapporteur Group, in short the IRG, of the International Organization for Standardization. This is the second time that Hong Kong plays host to the IRG meeting. The last time was in 1999 when we hosted the 13th meeting. First of all, let me extend my warmest welcome to delegates to be in Hong Kong, the Asia's World City as we call it.

The IRG is an important forum for member countries or territories to come together and work on the development of ideographic characters in the ISO 10646 standard. The IRG provides a coordinated means for member countries or territories to submit local characters for inclusion into the ISO 10646 standard. By adopting the standard, IT users in different places will be able to inter-operate with each other in a compatible manner as far as the coding of characters is concerned, thus facilitating electronic communication and the conduct of e-commerce across geographical boundaries.

Speaking of e-commerce, Hong Kong has been recognised internationally as one of the places with the best potential to develop e-business. The London-based Economist Intelligence Unit has recently ranked our e-business readiness among the group of "e-business leaders" in the world. The Forrester Research has forecast that Hong Kong will be among the lead group of economies in the Asia Pacific region to register e-business hyper-growth.

To build upon our strengths and to further enhance our competitive advantages in the international arena, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has recently published its 2001 Digital 21 Strategy. The strategy aims at spearheading the development of Hong Kong as a leading e-business community and premier digital city in the globally connected world. One of the objectives in the Digital 21 Strategy is to ensure that the community is supported by world class e-business infrastructure and environment. The adoption of international standards in building up our infrastructure is essential for allowing our community to effectively communicate electronically with the outside world.

As part of our e-business infrastructure, we have established a common Chinese language interface which is based on the ISO 10646 international coding standard. A key element of the interface is our development of the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set, in short the HKSCS, that contains Chinese characters specific to Hong Kong. We have submitted the HKSCS to the IRG for inclusion in the ISO 10646 standard. As of now, about two-thirds of the characters in the HKSCS are already included in the current version of the standard. Upon publication of the next release of the ISO 10646 standard, which should include the Extension B, all characters in the HKSCS will be included in the standard with the exception of a small number of character radicals and special symbols.

This IRG meeting has a special meaning in that it will perform the final examination of the ideographic characters in the Extension B before its publication with the next release of the ISO 10646 standard, which I understand has been scheduled by the end of this year. By then, we will be able to conduct electronic communication in Chinese with even better compatibility by making use of the HKSCS contained in the enhanced ISO standard.

Hosting the IRG meeting in Hong Kong also helps raise awareness among the local community in respect of the ISO 10646 standard. Last week, we conducted a briefing to the press to publicise this IRG meeting and the establishment of the common Chinese language interface in Hong Kong that is based on the standard.

I am pleased to announce that tomorrow evening, we will host a welcome dinner for all delegates. We have also invited members of the Chinese Language Interface Advisory Committee to attend the dinner. The Committee was set up in 1999 and comprises representatives from the academia, linguistic organisations, information technology and publishing industries. It provides expert and industry advice to the Government to support our ongoing development of the common Chinese language interface. The dinner will provide a valuable opportunity for delegates to meet with representatives from the local industries and to share with them knowledge and experiences on the handling of ideographic characters in the ISO 10646 standard. I cordially invite and look forward to seeing all of you at the dinner tomorrow.

Finally, I wish to express my appreciation for delegates' efforts in developing the ideographic characters in the ISO 10646 standard. Your dedication and professionalism will certainly ensure that the ISO 10646, as an international standard, will continue to be enhanced with the highest standard. I am sure that your efforts will also make this IRG meeting a successful event.

Thank you.