At the opening plenary meeting, Ghana took over the rotating chairmanship from Bulgaria. Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Member of Parliament and Minister of Communications of Ghana, said, "Ghana is committed to the ideals and values of ITU. Our major task is to bridge the digital divide. We must set the tone and agenda on how to strengthen regulatory practices, address issues related to convergence and ensure the smooth functioning of the Internet. We must also address the key challenges of our times, such as harnessing the power of ICTs to combat climate change. At the same time, we must focus on the issues affecting developing countries: how they can build capacity and attract investment in order to achieve the connectivity targets set by the World Summit on the Information Society and meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals."

Outgoing Chairman, Plamen Vatchkov of Bulgaria expressed his appreciation of the challenges addressed by ITU and its membership during his tenure. He said, "In the past year we addressed the challenges of strengthening cybersecurity, in particular protecting children online, as well as climate change and emergency communications. The year was marked by a severe economic downturn, but the ICT sector has weathered the storm well. I am confident that ITU, as the leading intergovernmental body for telecommunications and ICT, will continue to support all its stakeholders."

"This has been a very successful year in raising ITU’s profile on the international stage," ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré said in his opening remarks at the Council meeting. "ITU has demonstrated that information and communication technologies are vital and beneficial in addressing each and every one of the global issues faced today, particularly in the key areas of climate change, cybersecurity, and the financial crisis — areas where ICTs are now clearly recognized as being part of the solution, not part of the problem." Dr Touré added that next year "promises to be as exciting as ITU continues to drive and influence the rapidly changing ICT landscape".

The ITU Council will be in session until 30 October.

On the opening day, it was announced that the next ITU World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-10) will be hosted in Hyderabad, India from 24 May to 4 June 2010. An agreement was signed by ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré and Mr P.J. Thomas, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications, Government of India. Also present at the signing ceremony were Mr Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau, Ambassador A. Gopinathan, Permanent Representative of India to UN Offices in Geneva, and Mr R.N. Jha, Deputy Director-General, Department of Telecommunications, Government of India.

"The World Telecommunication Development Conference is a key event, bringing together all regions of the world to shape the future of ICT development," said Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau. "We are delighted that the 2010 Conference will be taking place in Hyderabad and are grateful to the Government of India for offering to host it."

WTDC-10 will set the telecommunication/ICT agenda for the following four year cycle. A number of Regional Preparatory Meetings (RPM) in Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Americas have been held to provide inputs on regional strategies and priorities to the World Conference to foster the development of information and communication technologies (ICT). The next RPM will be held for the CIS region in Minsk, Belarus, 23-25 November 2009, followed by RPMs for Europe (Andorra, 1-3 December 2009) and Arab States (Damascus, Syria, 17-19 January 2010).

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