Mr Chairman, Vice-Chairman of the Radiocommunication Assembly 07,

Excellencies,

Mr Deputy Secretary-General,

Mr Timofeev, Director, BR,

Mr Johnson, Director, TSB,

Mr Al-Basheer, Director, BDT,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Dear colleagues,

You have just completed a most intense week of debate and discussions. I know that your days have been long and arduous but I am aware that you have achieved some results that will place the Radiocommunications Sector, and in particular the activities of the Study Groups, on a sound footing for the coming study period.

Your work has been administrative, organizational and technical but in all these domains your results have one again demonstrated the primordial role that the ITU Radiocommunications Sector plays in global telecommunications and information technology. Two particular areas stand out:

• You response to Resolution 136 (Antalya, 2006) in the field of disaster prediction by the approval of two new Resolutions,
  
• The approval of Resolutions and Recommendations that not only augment the current IMT technologies but also initiate ITU-R studies for the next generation (or 4th generation) of mobile communications now called IMT-Advanced.

I personally believe that nanotechnology will be the technology of the near future, and I believe that the work being carried out will have an impact on it in the future, specially as we are working towards widespread use of multifunctional terminals (MFT).

These two technological mile-stones fit in well with the innovative telecommunication applications called for in WSIS action lines, not forgetting the Sector’s continuing responsibilities in all aspects of spectrum management which again are reflected in several Resolutions that you have reviewed and revised this week. Moreover, the ceremony to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the introduction of HDTV in Europe was a fitting reminder of another notable achievement of ITU-R, with due reference to the famous Recommendation BT.709 which represents the building-block of the world-wide standard for HDTV.

I was conscious of the difficult decisions relating to the election of the chairmen and vice-chairmen of the Study Groups, RAG, CPM and Special Committee, and in this respect I was happy to see so much interest from both Administrations and Sector Members in making the choice, sometimes very challenging, reminding us all the time of the great tradition of cooperation and consensus building of the Union. This time was no exception. Of course, we must never forget that value that ITU places on all candidates for such positions and to recognise that the large number of nominations to the posts reflects the healthy state of the Sector today. At this point, I personally wish to congratulate all the candidates and to wish them every success in their new roles. I also congratulate and thank the outgoing Chairman and Vice-Chairmen for their true commitment and their invaluable contribution for so many years, and hope they will continue to work with the ITU.

Ladies and gentlemen,

It has been an eventful week serving as a worthy prelude to an even larger event that starts next Monday. For those of you remaining in Geneva for WRC-07, you have a major task ahead of you and I look forward to seeing you on frequent occasions over the next four weeks. For those of you returning to your home countries, I wish you a safe return.

In closing, I would like to thank our Chairman, Mr Bruce Gracie of Canada, a long-time friend of the ITU who has contributed so much to the UNION. I also thank our Vice-Chairmen, all the Chairs of the Committees who have devoted valuable time for the success of this Conference. To you all the delegates, my thanks go to you, your Administrations and your companies.

Please allow me to end this speech by presenting to our Chairman the ITU Gold medal and a certificate. Mr Gracie has already received the ITU silver medal after successfully chairing the Council 2006, therefore this time it is the gold medal.

Finally, let me express my real pride of having colleagues at the BR, from the Director to all staff working behind the scene; Fabio Leite, Linda Kocher, Elizabeth Mostyn-Jones, Fabienne Huguet, and others led by Mr Kevin Hughes, as well as, colleagues at the General Secretariat, the Security, the Conference and the Administration and Finance Departments who have contributed to the success and the smooth running of this Assembly.

Thank you