States Parties, signatories, and members of international organizations and civil society,

First of all, let me congratulate the Qatari government and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for organizing such a splendid event.

I would also like to thank the open-ended intergovernmental working group for their efforts to build implementation review mechanism and promote international cooperation needed for anti-corruption technical support and asset recovery.

This Conference is especially meaningful for us because it is the first since Korea ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption.

Now, let me touch upon the UNCAC ratification process in Korea and our efforts to implement it. I will focus on Korea's anti-corruption technical assistance projects in the Asia-Pacific.

The Korean National Assembly passed "the Act on Special Cases Concerning Confiscation and Recovery of Corrupt Assets" in February of last year. This Act defines the crime of corruption subject to confiscation and recovery. And it stipulates the process of returning corrupt assets to foreign countries and repatriating corrupt assets from overseas to Korea. The implementation of this Act caused Korea to establish the basis needed to implement UNCAC Chapter V on asset recovery.

The passage of this Act was accompanied by a bill to ratify the UNCAC. Consequently, Korea gained the status of a State Party to the Convention. We notified the UN Secretary-General that the ACRC is an anti-corruption body under Article 6 of the Convention.

Korea is faithfully implementing the Convention as a State Party. We submitted a self-assessment checklist to the UNODC last August to be in line with the Secretariat's effort to gather and analyze information related to the Convention.

The importance of anti-corruption technical assistance is emphasized in Chapter VI of the Convention and resolution 1-5 of the Conference. And Korea is engaged in technical support projects with a number of Asian Pacific countries.

The ACRC, Korea's leading anti-corruption body, signed an MOU with its Indonesian counterpart in December 2006. Since then, the ACRC has been carrying out various projects to share anti-corruption experience. Indonesia actually applied Korea's Integrity Assessment to its government and public organizations.

After signing an MOU with the UNDP, the ACRC helped Bhutan and Bangladesh to adopt and strengthen their anti-corruption systems in 2007 and 2008.

We signed an anti-corruption MOU with Thailand this September and will sign one with Vietnam soon. We aim to expand this cooperation on technical assistance continuously.

On September 16 and 17, the ACRC held the 2009 APEC Anti-Corruption and Transparency Symposium under the theme of "systematic approach to building anti-corruption capacity."

Best practices were shared at this event, which was attended by APEC member governments, international organizations, and representatives of academia and civic organizations. Thus, Korea remains committed to enhancing technical assistance to fight corruption.

Korea has the basic legal and administrative framework for implementing both mandatory and optional provisions stipulated in Chapters II through V of the United Nations Convention against Corruption. As for prevention, we have been implementing many policies that other States Parties still do not. Our legal and administrative systems and policies are described specifically in the self-assessment checklist submitted to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
 
We will continue to improve anti-corruption system by referring to best practices of other States Parties. And we expect the Convention Secretariat or Conference of the States Parties will provide a range of best practices and ideas needed to implement the Convention.

I hope this Conference will serve as a meaningful milestone in the systematic implementation of the UNCAC and, by extension, the eradication of corruption worldwide. We hope for the adoption of an effective, transparent, and inclusive mechanism for the review of the implementation of the UNCAC during the 3rd session of the Conference of the States Parties in Doha.

The 21st century is an era of competition and cooperation among countries. The competition is not about which country is richer but about who is cleaner. To make countries clean, we need international cooperation. Let us realize the ultimate dream of humanity in the 21st century, which is making countries and the world clean. Let us ensure fruitful results are produced over the next five days on the major agendas of the Conference.

Finally, let me propose a slogan for this Conference: "transparency is prosperity." 

Thank you.