The relationship on information area between ISS (Information System Society) of IEICE and KISS (Korea Information Science Society) was formally established in 2004, when I took President of KISS. KISS was the most traditional and largest society in information area in Korea, which was established in 1973 and currently have about 170,000 members. KISS had MoU with ACM, IEEE Computer Society and IPSJ (Information Processing Society, Japan), but there was no MoU with IEICE. I had realized the need of collaboration with IEICE. Because recently Korean researchers have made a lot of submission to IEICE English Transactions. Korea accounts for the first place at the rate of submission from overseas. I started to contact with IEICE and we could smoothly get to have the MoU with ISS of IEICE since President of IEICE ISS was Prof Masauki Nakajima and was also very positive to have MoU. In order to practice exchange of two Societies, just after MoU Prof Nakajima and I visited both events held in Seoul and Kyoto, respectively. To enhance more exchange, it is expected that related Special Interest Groups in two societies have joint events such as a meeting, seminar, and workshop.

Therefore, it's very timely for Korea Section/Information to be formed this year. I'd like to take advantage of this opportunity to enhance further close relations in information area between Japan and Korea.