_________________________________________

The Council,

having considered

the report of the Secretary-General on the Memorandum of Understanding concerning Global Mobile Personal Communications by Satellite presented in Document C97/68 and the proposal from the United States of America presented in Document C97/97,

having further considered

the decisions taken at the 1997 session with respect to cost recovery for ITU products and services,

noting

that the ITU Member States and Sector Members provided voluntary financial contributions to support the first World Telecommunication Policy Forum in October 1996,

further noting

that the funds remaining from these voluntary contributions are now supporting the work of the GMPCS-MoU Group, and that voluntary contributions are being sought to support the implementation of WTPF Opinion No. 5,

resolves

1 that the ITU Secretariat shall continue to provide support to the GMPCS-MoU activities on the basis of full cost recovery recognizing that this is an acceptable role for the ITU Secretariat;

2 that the ITU Secretariat shall provide an accounting of the use to date of voluntary financial contributions to the first WTPF;

3 that the funds remaining from these voluntary contributions shall be used to support follow-up activities to the first policy forum-related activities for the next year;

4 that if additional funds are needed to support these activities, the Signatories to the GMPCS-MoU, as well as other interested parties, shall be requested by the ITU Secretariat to provide additional financial support to continue their work and to support the role of the ITU Secretariat in these activities.