BEIJING - Officials with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, companies from China and the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the ROK ambassador to China attended the 2011 Sino-Korean Mobile Internet Application Summit Forum held Thursday in Beijing.

The world has entered the mobile Internet era and that of mobile communications is over, Ni Jianzhong, executive vice-president of China Mobile Communications Association, said at the forum.

The fact that Chinese Internet service providers Tencent, Baidu and Taobao have advantages over their foreign rivals is essentially a matter of cultural triumph, he added.

Chinese is currently the only language system that can compete with English on the Internet. The Han cultural system belongs not only to the Chinese, but is shared by many peoples in East Asia. Nations in this region should cooperate to create a new Han cultural circle in the mobile Internet age, and aim to promote the restoration and integration of, and regain confidence in, East Asian culture, Ni said.

Mobile communications started in the United States. Europeans enriched the experience before the ROK and Japan made great contributions in furthering its development. Now, as the biggest global market, China will do its part in the final phase, he said.

At the end of the forum, two MOUs were signed. The first, signed between China's CCID and the ROK's Kotra, states that the two countries' IT enterprises will cooperate in exchanges of information in various fields. It also announced the opening of a Sino-Korean IT portal site.

The second MOU was inked by Chinese electronics manufacturer TCL Group and the ROK's green software developer ENBsoft Co Ltd The deal allows TCL to use ROK-developed print applications on its mobile phones and tablets.

More than 200 senior officials or managers with China's Ministry of Industry and Information, Chinese and ROK companies engaged in the mobile Internet business, and the ROK ambassador to China attended the event.