Seoul: The government has established a meeting of ministers related to data production and management to make it a decision-making body on related issues so as to promote cooperation and coordinate interests between ministries and improve policy consistency, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said Thursday. Kim made the remark while presiding over a meeting of data-related ministers that he said was the inaugural session of the formalized meeting, stressing the importance of tearing down barriers between agencies on the use of data in order to help combine various data in different fields to generate new values and innovation.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Kim highlighted that data businesses are currently divided across several ministries, including the science ministry, the interior ministry, the data ministry, the culture ministry, and the personal information commission, based on each agency's functions and expertise. Kim emphasized that while the government has focused on accumulating expertise in each sector so far, it is now time to dismantle barriers between ministries and agencies and consider systematic cooperation.

Kim stated that the data-related ministerial meeting will act as an interagency decision-making body that determines the direction of important data policies and coordinates and resolves conflicting interests among ministries and agencies. The new forum will also explore ways to secure high-quality data suitable for the era of artificial intelligence, he added.