JAPAN

STATEMENT BY H.E. MR Norihisa Tamura
SENIOR VICE-MINISTER OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATIONS

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

I am honored to speak on the occasion of this Plenipotentiary Conference. I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the warm hospitality of Turkey and the Turkish people. I also express my congratulations to Mr. Cataltepe on his election as Chairman of the conference.

Exactly a year ago, the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society was held at the other end of the Mediterranean Sea. It was a grand affair with nearly fifty heads of state gathered to reaffirm the role of ICT in the development of the world. Because of the two-phase summit, ITU has become more widely known throughout the world and has gained the valuable asset of its alliance with various stakeholders. I am deeply grateful to Switzerland and Tunisia and to all of the ITU staff members for their hard work and the valuable support of several countries.
　
Ladies and gentlemen, the “Missing Link” report issued 21 years ago put forward the idea of a “telephone network that should cover the entire globe”. Thanks to the development of wireless communication technologies, we can now see clear signs of progress toward this goal. However, the Age of the Internet is producing a new gap, the “digital divide”, and it is ITU’s pressing task to seek ways to bridge this divide.

Moreover, telecommunications has reached a clear turning point. Telephone networks once based on switching equipment are now being replaced with next-generation networks based on internet protocols. This trend is progressing along the supply-side–led de facto standard; and it is necessary to ensure interconnection and interoperability to facilitate widespread development. Consequently, it is becoming ever more important for ITU to work together with industry to achieve this standardization on a broad scale. Also, in order to ensure global connectivity, it is imperative to ensure the involvement of developing economies in this process and that developed economies work to make it easier for developing economies to participate.

For this reason it is crucial that ITU secure sufficient financial as well as human resources. Japan has already been supporting this global connectivity effort by providing a number of experts as the chairs and rapporteurs of study groups. We will continue contributing in this way.

And as a further means of supporting ITU in this effort, Japan has put forward Dr. Yuji Inoue as a candidate for the post of Director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. Dr. Inoue possesses special expertise and vision, and the ability to bring in industry to help with tackling the new issues. He has a thorough understanding of ICT as Chief Technology Officer of NTT, and extensive experience as a successful manager of a massive laboratory with some 2500 researchers. And he has worked on projects in developing countries, having received honorary professorships from universities in Central Asia and South America. I hope that you will focus on Dr. Inoue’s personal qualifications and lend him your full support. With Dr. Inoue serving as Director, the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau will be more than able to fulfill its challenging mission ahead.
Additionally, Japan will continue to contribute thirty units towards the general budget and will take an active role in increasing the number of sector members.

ITU is currently faced with financial difficulties as a result of the structural rigidity of its annual expenditures. We are, therefore, forced to reserve our focus on a limited number of high-priority tasks. This issue is not an easy one to solve, and the new executive officers to be elected during this conference will approach it with due sincerity. If elected as a member of the council, Japan will be able to provide even greater assistance in dealing with this issue.

　Finally, I would like to commend the General Secretariat on its thorough preparations for this conference and also express my appreciation for the hard work the delegates have put into it in advance. I would like to conclude by reaffirming that we will make our best effort to make deliberations proceed smoothly so that this shortest plenipotentiary conference in the ITU history will be another success.

Thank you very much.