Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
Friends,
Ladies and Gentlemen
I would like to start with expressing my congratulations and appreciations to the ITU, the Government of Korea and the authorities of the city of Busan for such a great organization and hosting. And I would also like to thank the Secretariat for availing this opportunity for me to speak.
ICTs change too fast to follow but as we all understand that they should be harnessed and international cooperation is the key in this regard to deal with the challenges and opportunities. With its 150 years of journey the ITU has been clear with this mission and will be obviously further developed even we are not sure how fast and dramatic the ICTs will change in the future.
However, for now we are here at the key event to decide on the international role of the ITU and to understand its overall capacity to shape the further development of ICTs for the next period. As a small country that joined the ITU just almost two decades ago Azerbaijan has a pleasure and privilege to assist the Union with its major commitment of connecting the world and the Global Post 2015 Development Agenda. According to 'The State of Broadband 2014' report Azerbaijan holds leading positions among CIS countries on fixed and mobile broadband subscriptions and percentage of individuals using the Internet.
For last four years Azerbaijan essentially helped the ITU General Secretariat with striving to drive the broadband deployment across the world and is strongly involved in the activity of the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development. The Government of Azerbaijan has initiated a platform for improving the connectivity in Eurasia and the ITU is one of the partners of the project. The first telecom satellite that was launched early last year covers Europe as well as significant part of Asia and Africa avails the transmission of TV/radio broadcasting and the internet connectivity for emerging markets.
As we contribute to the ITU we also want to benefit. These days Azerbaijan is represented in the TDAG and the ITU-T Study Group 2 and a candidate is nominated for the new composition of the RRB. Today we have a couple of Azerbaijani experts employed by the ITU and we want to increase this number. We launched the IT University with highly qualified international staff and we believe that it will become the ITU regional Center of Excellence for the next period.
For last decade we have witnessed a tremendous work done by the Secretariat and the Bureaus. I'd like to emphasize here a great performance of my brother Dr. Touré during his tenure both as a Secretary-General and a BDT Director. Taking this opportunity I'd like to thank him for his dedication he showed during all this time and wish him all success with his further commitments and also like to wish the nominees success with elections. As Azerbaijan is also nominated from the C Region for the Council Membership we look forward to involving more resources and to adding more values to further growth and strengthening the Union. Our expectations are to see the ITU stronger and prosperous.
Thank you.
|
