Dr. Tarek Kamel,
Minister of CIT, Egypt
Dr. Ahmed El Sherbini,
Director, National Telecom Institute, Egypt
Dear guests,

It is a great pleasure and honour to be with you here today for the opening of the new ITU’s Arab Regional Office on the premises of the NTI in the Smart Village.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as you may know, this office was initially opened in 1991 as an implementation of 1989 Nice Plenipotentiary Resolution. I am delighted to see all of the accomplishments over the past seventeen years. We have seen incredible transformation of the telecommunications sector over these years. We started with the Arab Book on Telecommunication Policies in the first part of the 1990’s and today we have:

• more than 50% of the Arab States with separate regulatory bodies,
• a strong Arab Regulators Network
• over 80% of the Arab States have introduced competition in the mobile sector

We are grateful for the kind hospitality of the Egyptian Government represented by the Ministry and NTI in hosting our regional office in this modern and fascinating Smart Village. Being part of the Smart Village community will ensure that we execute our mandate for the region in a more efficient manner.

I commend my colleague and friend Sami Al-Basheer and all of our Regional Staff on this move. I count on them to continue their great work and achieve the goals of ITU in serving the needs of Arab States.

I take this opportunity to express once again my deep thanks and appreciation to the Government of Egypt and special thanks is extended to H. E. Dr. Ahmed Nazih, the Prime Minister and H. E. Dr. Tarek Kamel for generous hosting the ITU Arab Regional Office. We are also grateful to Dr. Ahmed El Sherbini, for his continuous efforts and support of the regional office.

I wish you all the success and best of luck.