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The 15th Asia-Pacific Telecommunity Standardization Program (ASTAP) Forum |
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Bangkok, Thailand |
09 - 11 March 2009 |
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Ladies and gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure to be with you today, I would like to thank APT for
the invitation.
I would like to start by congratulating APT on reaching its 30th
anniversary, and thanking APT on behalf of all ITU management for its
contribution to the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly
(WTSA-08) in Johannesburg last year.
APT’s contribution to the WTSA was a major factor in its success.
In particular I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to APT for making
Bob Horton available to chair Committee 4.
Committee 4 was responsible for the most radical restructuring that the
standardization sector has seen.
This was in no small part due to Bob’s excellent guidance. Once again thank
you Bob for your tremendous success.
I believe WTSA-08 has been recognised as one of the most successful
Assemblies we have held.
It was preceded for the first time by a Global Standards Symposium (GSS)
with many high level speakers including ministers, ambassadors, heads of
regulatory bodies; CTOs of multinationals; heads of major standards bodies.
The conclusions addressed ways to bridge the standardization gap; challenges
in the new standards landscape, including climate change and accessibility
and ways to strengthen collaboration amongst standards bodies.
These conclusions were acted on by WTSA-08.
I would like to thank the Honourable Vice-Minister H.E. Mr. Nyugen Thanh
Hung, Vice-Minster, Ministry of Information and Communications, Vietnam for
successfully chairing the GSS.
And, I would also like to thank Dr Phan Tam for leading the work of the
steering committee so successfully.
It was also the first WTSA to have an associated small exhibition.
I would like to thank ETRI for bringing to Johannesburg such exciting new
technologies to show people the end result of all the hard work on
standards.
I believe that we found inspiration in Johannesburg to move forward into an
era of even greater efficiency and cooperation in our standards making, with
many exciting new areas of work.
WTSA-08 considerably strengthened ITU’s role as the world’s pre-eminent
global telecommunication and ICT standards body.
It recognized that bridging the standardisation gap is essential to ITU’s
mission to connect the world.
I would also like to thank all the members from this region that put forward
candidates for the leadership positions in our study groups, as well as the
individuals themselves.
Asia-Pacific has 27 leadership positions including the chairmanship of five
very important study groups.
I look forward to working closely with them to maintain and further improve
ITU-T’s position as a leader in efficient international standards making.
Ladies and gentlemen, every time I am in the Asia-Pacific region I am
reminded of the vitality of the information and communications technologies
(ICTs) market here.
In these troubled financial times we should take heart from this.
The Asia-Pacific region has some of the world’s most sophisticated ICT
markets.
Many of the world’s broadband leaders are here and some of the greatest
levels of innovation are found here.
The WTSA called for a strengthening of our Technology Watch function and
recognized that close collaboration with other SDOs, universities, academia
and other related institutions is required.
I very much hope to receive contributions to this function from this region.
The ICT industry must continue to invest in research and innovation.
Investment in ICTs now makes as much sense as investment in the physical
infrastructure of roads and railways during the great depression of the
1930’s.
So while the financial crisis will inevitably be very tough indeed for many
ICT businesses, I believe it will also result in a revitalized industry and
enable new entrants with new technologies to thrive. This is the conclusion
of a recent report commissioned by the Secretary-General called “Confronting
the Crisis – its impact on the ICT industry” which is available on the ITU
website.
We look forward to collaborating with these ICT leaders and innovators to
power the economic recovery across all sectors.
In the meantime we must make every effort to reduce the financial burden of
our work through increased electronic working, limiting number and duration
of meetings to the minimum necessary to efficiently carry out our work. I am
pleased that recent study group meetings have been paperless meetings, and
TSAG management has reduced the duration of the next TSAG to 3 days in line
with the other Sectors’ advisory groups.
Ladies and Gentlemen, once again it is a pleasure to be with ASTAP again,
especially to take this opportunity to thank you all for your contribution
to ITU.
I look forward to our continuing collaboration.
Thank you
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