BRAZIL TO HOST AMERICAS TELECOM 2000

Minneapolis, 23 October 1998 — Dr Pekka Tarjanne, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), signed an agreement today with Mr Renato Navarro Guerreiro, President of Anatel – the regulatory authority of Brazil, to hold an international telecommunications exhibition and forum in Rio de Janeiro in the year 2000 – Americas Telecom 2000. The ceremony took place in Minneapolis during the ITU’s four-yearly Plenipotentiary Conference.

Americas Telecom 2000 will be held in the spring of 2000 in Rio de Janeiro at the Riocentro exhibition and conference centre, which is ideally located and offers advanced exhibition and forum facilities. The event will be the fourth to be organized by ITU in the Americas Region, with Rio de Janeiro being the venue for Americas Telecom 88 and Americas Telecom 96, and Acapulco, Mexico being the venue for Americas Telecom 92.

The organizer, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), received invitations with very attractive conditions from several countries in the region to host Americas Telecom 2000, and it was not easy to decide on the venue. After many consultations and a series of negotiations, however, and taking into account the particular considerations of infrastructure, accommodation, transport and conference and exhibition facilities, the Secretary-General of the ITU, Dr Pekka Tarjanne, accepted Brazil’s offer to host the event.

The ITU’s unique position as a specialized agency of the United Nations enables it to bring together in Rio all the strategic players in the world of telecommunications, where visitors, exhibitors and speakers will have access to the technology and ideas that will shape the future for the Americas region.

Following the remarkable success of Americas Telecom 96, Americas Telecom 2000 promises to be the biggest telecommunications event ever held in the region – with the addition of two new exhibition halls, Riocentro now has a total of over 35,000 square metres of net exhibition space, and is the largest venue of its kind in South America. The Americas Telecom 2000 event is expected to attract over 400 companies from more than 30 countries. The previous regional event in the Americas, Americas Telecom 96, was attended by 412 exhibitors, 18,000 trade visitors, and 441 VIPs, comprising Ambassadors, Ministers of Communications, Directors-General, and Chairmen and Chief Executive Officers.

The Americas Telecom 2000 exhibition will feature a vast range of telecommunications-related products and services, while the associated forum will focus on the latest telecommunication developments and growth and will provide a platform for telecommunication leaders to share their ideas on future trends and discuss appropriate strategies for the developing as well as the industrialized world.

About 30 per cent of the world’s main telephone lines are to be found in the Americas region, but the vast majority are in the USA and Canada – the other 500 million people in the Americas region have only 51 million phone lines between them. And although growth across the region – and particularly in the wireless and cellular markets – has been spectacular, the potential is still vast, with a huge pent up demand for all telecommunications services. Liberalization has already started impacting many countries and in the next 18 months the Argentinean, Peruvian and Venezuelan markets will be opened up to further competition. Brazil itself has just witnessed Latin America’s biggest-ever privatization – with three fixed line operators, eight cellular companies and the international long-distance carrier being sold to the highest bidders and generating enormous inward investment for the country, and indeed the whole of the region.

Americas Telecom 2000 will be the 22^nd Telecom event since World Telecom was first held in Geneva, in 1971. The regional events, which include Americas, Asia and Africa Telecoms, were introduced in 1985 in order to address the more specific concerns of the individual regions. Since then these events have grown in size and prestige and have become the most respected and authoritative in the world. The world events are now held in four year cycles and the regionals in two year cycles in order to ensure adequate global coverage across all 188 Member States of the ITU, and each regional event has shown huge growth over its predecessors.

For additional information, please contact:

Mr Thomas Frankl
Telecom Press Officer
E-mail: thomas.frankl@itu.int
Telephone: +41 22 730 6345
Fax: +41 22 730 6444
Web site: http://www.itu.int/TELECOM