SURINAME

STATEMENT BY H.E. Ms. Alice Amafo
Minister of Transport, Communications and Tourism

Your excellencies
Chairman of the Conference
Distinguished delegates to the Plenipotentiary Conference 2006
Distinguished members of the ITU
Ladies and gentlemen

Good afternoon
On behalf of the Government of the Republic of Suriname, it is indeed a great honor and pleasure for me to be part of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2006 held here in Antalya, Turkey.

I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Republic of Turkey as the host of this 17th Plenipotentiary Conference and express my sincere gratitude for its warm hospitality.

In many developing countries and especially the less economically developed countries, telecommunications services in the rural and remote areas are virtually non-existent.

We have to bear in mind that access to telecommunications facilities is a prerequisite for making available the benefits of ICT
as specified in the Millennium Development Goals.

Many developing countries, although recognizing the need, lack sufficient means to provide the rural and remote areas with basic telecommunication services.

The Government of Suriname faces the challenge to provide telecommunications services to our sparsely populated interior,
part of the Amazon rainforest which covers 80% of Surinamese territory, even though the fact remains that it is commercially less feasible.

In order to meet the Millennium Development Goals, it is first of all imperative to extend the coverage of telecommunications services to these areas which in return will provide a stimulus to economic and social development.

In accordance with the Doha Declaration and Action Plan, the Geneva Plan of Action and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society the Republic of Suriname fully supports the principles and will do its utmost to execute the agreed upon action plans.

However, in order for us to adhere to these action plans, we call upon the ITU for support to respond to the rapid developments taking place within this sector.

I also call upon developing countries to work more closely together, so that in a joint effort we can work towards minimizing the digital divide.

Taking into account the above mentioned it is therefore required that the telecommunication Development Bureau with its expertise and experience take the appropriate actions to support these countries in their efforts to meet the MDG’s, in order to ensure that everyone anywhere in the world can have equitable and affordable access to Information and Communications Technologies and fully benefits from its potentials.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for your attention.