Hong Kong, China to host ITU TELECOM Asia 2000

Geneva, 24 June 1999 — ITU TELECOM Asia 2000 will be held in Hong Kong, China, from 4 to 9 December next year. The event will take place in the brand new Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, which is ideally located and offers advanced exhibition and forum facilities.

The organizer, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), received invitations with very attractive conditions from several countries in the region, 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, Mr Yoshio Utsumi, accepted the offer of the Government of China to host Asia 2000 in Hong Kong, China.

A signing ceremony was held at the ITU’s headquarters in Geneva today, with His Excellency Mr Ambassador Zonghuai Qiao, the Chinese Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Switzerland, representing the Chinese government and Yoshio Utsumi representing the ITU. His Excellency Mr Zonghuai Qiao said "China is delighted to be hosting this prestigious event, which will help advance telecommunications development in all the countries of the Asia Pacific region." Mr Utsumi said that he was very pleased that the ITU was going, for the first time, to be organizing an event in China, and that he was confident that Asia 2000 would be a great success for the region’s people.

At the same ceremony, Mr A S K Wong, the Director-General of Telecommunications representing the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), signed the Memorandum of Administrative Arrangements for the event. At the signing, Mr Wong said "We welcome the ITU’s acceptance of the invitation from the PRC to hold ITU TELECOM Asia 2000 in Hong Kong."

Hong Kong, China, promises to be an excellent venue for the TELECOM event, with a communications and transport infrastructure which reflects its importance as a business hub for the region.

The ITU's unique position as a specialized agency of the United Nations enables it to bring together in Hong Kong 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 Asia-Pacific region.

Following the remarkable success of Asia TELECOM 97, Asia 2000 promises to be the biggest telecommunications event ever held in the region, with 64,000 m² of air-conditioned exhibition space available, and is expected to attract over 500 companies from more than 100 countries. The previous regional event in Asia, Asia TELECOM 97, was attended by 476 exhibitors, 40,608 visitors coming from 104 countries, and 401 VIPs, comprising Ministers of Communications, Directors-General, Chairmen and Chief Executive Officers.

The 49 countries of the Asia-Pacific region constitute the world's largest single market for telecommunications products and services. The regional average telephone density is just 6.6 per hundred people against a world average of 13.4, but the Asia-Pacific region is recovering fast after last year’s recession, and several economies of the region continue to be the fastest growing in the world today. China itself is not just one of the biggest telecoms markets in the world today, but also one of the fastest growing – by the beginning of June the country had more than 30 million mobile cellular subscribers in the world, ranking it third, behind only the USA (70 million) and Japan (43 million).

Asia 2000 will be the 23^rd 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 event is held in a four yearly cycle, while the Asia and Americas regional events are now held every other year in order to ensure adequate global coverage across all 188 Member countries of the ITU, and each regional event has shown huge growth over its predecessors. Asia TELECOM 97 was nearly twice the size of Asia TELECOM 93, which was itself more than three times as big as Asia TELECOM 89, and six times larger than Asia TELECOM 85.

Asia 2000 comprises an Exhibition and a Forum. The 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 in the region 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.

The whole region will be represented at the event by means of a fellowship scheme, which brings two representatives from each of the countries across the region to participate in a Development Workshop as well as being able to share in the Forum and see the Exhibition.

For additional information, please see the ITU TELECOM web site, at www.itu.int/telecom, or contact: