17jan96 SINGAPORE is to take part in a world exposition which will be held in cyberspace.

The Internet 1996 World Exposition will allow corporations, organisations and individuals here to showcase themselves to the world using the exposition as their common theme.

Its central site will be linked to the country "pavilions" around the world.

Apart from Singapore, other countries which are taking part include the United States, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and Taiwan.

Associate Professor Bernard Tan, who chairs the organising committee, said the World Exposition was "remarkable and unique, not only on the Internet, but also in the history of world's fairs and expositions".

It will be the first World's Fair not to be held in a single city or geographical location.

Singapore would benefit from participating in it, he said.

"It is a way to promote Singapore internationally, and also to promote the Internet in Singapore," he said, after a press conference at the National Computer Board (NCB) office yesterday. Mr Marc Tan, the assistant director of NCB's Internet and New Media Cluster, is a member of the organising committee.

He said: "A lot of what the world sees of Singapore is now filtered through non-Singaporean eyes.

"This is a chance to show the world Singapore as Singaporeans themselves see it."

The National University of Singapore is one of the organisations which has agreed to join in so far.

Among other things, it will be offering its Cyberspace Hospital, a collection of health resources, PObox, an e-mail forwarding service, and multilingual web, a collection of Web sites in languages other than English.

In addition, the steering committee will also showcase Singapore festivals and events throughout the year, including the Lunar New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Asian Aerospace, the Arts Festival, National Day and Children's Day.

The committee hopes that more organisations and individuals will take part.

Those who are interested can contact NCB's Jeffrey Goh or e-mail the organisers at expo-admin@www.sg.

The address for the Internet 1996 World Exposition is http://park.org.

The address of the Singapore pavilion is http:// expo.net.sg.