NEW DELHI - The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) hosted business executives from around the world Sept. 18-20, 2006, in New Delhi, India for a meeting of ICC's Commission on E-Business, IT and Telecoms (EBITT) and the first meeting of Business Action to Support the Information Society (BASIS) - a new ICC initiative to serve as the voice of business in the global dialogue on the Information Society
The first BASIS meeting, headed by BASIS Chairman Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, introduced a platform to discuss several issues related to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and gave an insight of the first IGF meeting to be held in Athens Oct. 30-Nov. 2, 2006.
According to a press release by the ICC, such forums were created to ensure a continued dialogue among business, governments, civil society and technical community experts on a range of initiatives - from creating an environment to promote safe and secure use of the Internet, to the integration of information and communications technologies (ICTs) as tools for economic growth and social development.
"Business must participate in these forums, to ensure future policies are pro-competition, investment-friendly, encourage entrepreneurship and facilitate the development of ICT training and education," said Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh.
Business executives and Indian government officials exchanged experiences in several key areas including, complying with the increasingly complex and conflicting demands for various types of data; legal, policy, regulatory and technical options regarding privacy and security issues and Internet connection costs and policies.
The ICC created BASIS following the WSIS held in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005). BASIS participates in UN-linked forums set up to launch a global dialogue on Internet governance, such as the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID), the IGF and the WSIS follow-up and implementation processes.