"The Silk Road connected Asia and Europe in ancient times, and now we can build an electronic silk road to link our three countries much closer through the sharing of information," said a Japanese official Tuesday in Dalian.

Kenryu Tanaka, vice mayor of Sapporo of Japan, made the remarks at a forum on regional economic cooperation between China, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Tanaka said "with the increasing importance of economic exchanges, we can apply information technology and the Internet more extensively and flexibly to the economic cooperation between our three countries."

The ancient Silk Road brought prosperity to the countries along the road through exchanges of personnel, resources and information.

"Now we give the name 'electronic silk road' to our exchanges and cooperation with the information as the core," Tanaka said, adding that "people can travel the electronic silk road just by touching a keyboard and moving a mouse."

In recent years, the rapid growth of information technology and excellent IT experts in Asian countries have proved to the world the importance of Asian countries in the IT area, he acknowledged.

He went on to say that "the electronic silk road, as a new flexible access to different cultures and different areas has outlined a blueprint for us."

Information technology helps us find solutions to difficulties not only for IT enterprises but also in many other areas including biological technology and tourism as well as people's daily life, Tanaka added.

Information technology is one of the mainstays of Sapporo. This February, a meeting on the electronic silk road was held in Sapporo, attended by IT enterprises and experts who exchanged views on the cooperation of Asian cities through information technology.

Tanaka expressed his hope that the promotion of the electronic silk road can propel cooperation between IT enterprises of Japan, China and the ROK and increase the competitive ability of Asian enterprises.

The forum on the regional economic cooperation between China, Japan and the ROK entered its second day. After an exchange of views on the rejuvenation of northeast China and economic cooperation of China, Japan and the ROK, representatives from the three countries began to investigate enterprises in Dalian Tuesday afternoon.