Dinner Remarks
by H.E. Yun Byung-se
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea

Official Dinner
Seoul Conference on Cyberspace
October 17, 2013

Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to the official dinner of the Seoul Conference!

You all must be very tired after a busy day of plenaries and panel discussions. I was told that the latest session finished just a few minutes ago!

I thank you all for your passionate and constructive contributions throughout the day. In this regard, it is a great pleasure for me to host today’s dinner.

I hope this will be a memorable evening of friendship among colleagues, both new and old. We have prepared for you a variety of delicious Korean dishes as well as musical selections, which I hope you will enjoy.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google, once said, “In a networked world, trust is the most important currency.”

I could not agree more. Just as we cannot imagine our economy operating without currency, our heavily interdependent world cannot properly function without international cooperation based on trust.

Like water and air, trust is a necessity. It is also like glue that binds together networks of interpersonal and commercial relationships in today’s society.

At the same time, as we find a larger and larger portion of our daily lives to be linked with Internet-based platforms, cyberspace is increasingly becoming the target of attacks and exploitations that transcend national borders, which requires multilateral solution.

If these problems are not adequately addressed in such manner, our efforts to establish trust in cyberspace will falter, and thus prevent the further development of cyberspace and the ensuing benefits.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Fortunately, the history of humanity is rich with examples of our success in enhancing the welfare of the people through cooperation and trust – and such efforts are still under way today, in many areas of multilateral agendas that requires collective action.

Nonproliferation regimes are good case in point. Recently, we saw success stories in Nuclear Security Summit and in related areas as well.

This and other experiences in multilateral agendas provide an insight on how we should address the current challenge of promoting an open and secure cyberspace.

It is my hope that throughout the Seoul Conference, you will share the best practices and success stories in search for collective solutions to address the current challenges in cyberspace.  By doing so, I believe that we can ensure the latest, state-of-the-art cyber technologies are put to positive and productive use.

I promise you that Korea will do its part in this endeavor. The Park Geun-hye Government, which was inaugurated earlier this year, has put forward the vision of achieving happiness throughout the global community.

With this vision in mind, Korea will continue to expand and strengthen capacity building projects for developing countries in the area of cyberspace, in an effort to address the increasingly serious problem of the global digital divide.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

One of Korea’s most beloved poets, Cho Jihoon, who happens to be the father of our vice foreign minister, once wrote;

“The song I sing on my way towards the light will be the wind that moves the dark clouds away.”

It is an expression of the wisdom of turning adversity into opportunity.

Likewise, I hope the Seoul Conference will yield the song that we can sing together as we embark on the journey to find the light of “Global Prosperity through an Open and Secure Cyberspace.”

Thank you.