Statement
by
H. E. Mr. Le Nam Thang
Deputy Secretary-General, Department General of Posts & Telecommunications
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Wednesday, 20 March 2002
Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great privilege for me today to be here, in the third
World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-2002) being held in
marvelous Istanbul. Taking this opportunity, on behalf of the Vietnam
delegation, I would like to express our gratitude to the Government and people
of Turkey for hosting this conference and for their hospitality. I may say that
the WTDC-02 is an important event of the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU), particularly of the Telecommunication Development Sector in the beginning
of Twenty First Century and before convening the Plenipotentiary Conference by
September this year and the World Summit of Information Society (WSIS) to be
held by 2003.
There were four years passed over since the second WTDC. We
have gained the outstanding achievements of information and communication
technologies during that time. Looking back, we must be surprise to recognize
that we have passed through "a so long journey" of the ICT evolution.
Thus, how do we assess all the things we have done in the recent time? How is
the stage ahead? How shall we do to make a rapid leap? I am confident that the
third WTDC will bring the wise answers to our questions.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Since the WTDC-98, we have witnessed the creation of various
new services, especially the boom of Internet and prospective of potential
mobile services. In such changing telecommunications environment, the concepts
of "ICT" and "digital divide" turn familiar to everybody.
They quickly become development trend of the world and draw high attention to
many countries, international and regional organizations, ... For the countries
having poor telecommunication infrastructure, ICT development is not easy
objective to carry out due to their pressing mission on ensuring and providing
their people with basic services, mainly voice services. In my thinking, the key
point here is that based on practice and situation of different countries, every
country should set up an applicable policy on existing telecommunications
infrastructure development, which will become a solid foundation for modern ICT
to be built on and developed in the future.
At present, there are various problems to be in need of
solving and also challenges that face us. In fact, there are the economy and
science-technology gaps and telecommunication gap between developed and
developing countries that happens for a long time. Therefore, the developing
countries must do a lot of works, complete many objectives in order to keep pace
with the developed countries. Actually, developing countries have to take care
of a number of critical issues, such as licensing, interconnection and tariff,
and universal service obligation, ... In that connection, I want to share with
you my concern on the international accounting rate settlement and international
Internet connection charging principle especially. This is a important issue for
developing countries now and therefore, we should find out the common ground in
having an applicable approach and giving an objective and reasonable measures in
order to facilitate developing countries in bridging digital divide and rapidly
promoting universal access.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Together with other member countries, telecommunications
sector in Vietnam has undergone profound renovation over the past years. We have
carried out fundamental restructures in terms of organization and regulation to
keep pace with global trends such as competition, private sector participation,
technology convergence. In the course of development we highly appreciate
effective support from ITU/BDT with different activities such as meetings and
seminars, training, Human Resource Development and especially project on rural
telecommunications development. We wish that ITU/BDT would continue to support
developing countries in such activities in the coming time.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We all know that developing countries have large demands on
learning experience and advice on management and regulatory to be provided. This
question once has reflected in the Valletta Action Plan. However, from our point
of view and the assessment of other member-countries, as well as considered the
lessons learnt from implementing previous Plan, the program of next stage should
be further concretized, diversified in various forms and intensified also. I do
hope that ITU/BDT will pay special attention, from now on, in activities
relating to the urgent and imperative issues of developing countries, as well as
promote technical assistance for these countries. Taking this occasion, we would
like to propose that the ITU's regional presence should be further strengthened
because those bodies deeply understand about member-countries in the region and
thus, they know the good ways in assisting members and solving the matters
concerning to them. In addition, the BDT should take appropriate measure to
coordinate with BR and TSB in order to enhance efficiency of activities of the
Union and the ones concerning to developing countries particularly, support them
in effectively participating in activities of ITU-T and ITU-R.
Ladies and Gentlemen
I firmly believe that WTDC-02 will determine the right
priorities and policies based on which BDT will realize in concrete actions and
activities. And I think the directions and guidelines of the Conference will be
useful for all countries and especially developing countries in their
telecommunication development. Finally, I want to say the most importance is
that we must find the ways to "bridge communication divide",
"bridge cultural, economical gap" advance toward the common progress
and prosperity.
May I wish the Conference a great success and a fruitful
cooperation among member countries.
Thank you for your attention.
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