Bearing in mind the Chairman's admonition that we make brief opening statements, I will reserve my loftier remarks for this afternoon's Opening Ceremony, and simply say a few words at this time about some of the main challenges facing the conference as I see them.

If we think back over the four years that have passed since the Kyoto Plenipotentiary Conference, it is clear that remarkable developments have taken place in the telecommunications environment. If anything, the pace of change has been quicker than we anticipated and more profound in its effects.

As I have said on other occasions, the main forces driving the development of telecommunications today are threefold: first, the convergence of telecommunications, computing, broadcasting and entertainment; second, the restructuring of the telecommunication sector through liberalization, privatization, competition, re-regulation, and globalization; and third, growth through the explosive development of new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.

All of these forces have been magnified and accelerated by the World Trade Organization agreement on trade in basic telecommunication services which came into effect at the beginning of this year. I fully expect them to be given further impetus by the implementation of GMPCS services, a process scheduled to begin before the end of this conference.

Although events may have unfolded more rapidly than we anticipated, I think it is fair to say that the main decisions we took at the Kyoto conference were basically correct, and that the ITU's strategy for adapting to the changing telecommunications environment is basically sound.

The success of the first two World Telecommunication Policy Forums -- on GMPCS in October 1996 and on the implications of the WTO agreement in March of this year -- showed that, in addition to playing its traditional roles, the ITU can be an effective forum for devising innovative and practical responses to global policy and regulatory challenges.

Events since 1994 have also shown that the initiatives launched at the Kyoto conference to enhance the rights of ITU Sector Members and to strengthen the Union’s financial foundations were absolutely correct.

The last four years have seen a remarkable increase in the role of the private sector in the development of telecommunications everywhere in the world.

I am very pleased to report that so far, this increasing role has been reflected by a significantly stronger participation by the private sector in the work of the ITU. At the end of 1994, the ITU had 371 Sector Members. Four years later, we have more than 500. Not only is this number increasing on an almost weekly basis. It is becoming much more representative of the convergent nature of the communications and information industries.

Over the past four years, ITU Member States and Sector Members have worked very hard to find ways of enhancing the role of the private sector within the framework of what everyone agrees should remain an intergovernmental organization.

They have also worked hard to identify new approaches to funding the Union’s activities which, while retaining the ITU tradition of free choice, would lessen our reliance on assessed contributions from Member States and make greater use of mechanisms such as cost recovery and voluntary contributions toward specific projects.

In 1994 and 1995, these goals were pursued through the work of the Resolution 15 Review Committee -- better known as RevCom or the ' Wyn-Wyn' committee, in honour of Wyn Lucas of British Telecom, its Sector Member Chairman. The secretariat also tried to play its part by identifying and analyzing ways of strengthening the ITU’s financial foundations, as we were asked to do in Resolution 39.

At its 1996 session, the Council decided to merge these two steams of work and entrust its further development to the ITU-2000 Working Group, under the able chairmanship of our good friend, Razzak Berrada of Morocco.

Implementing the recommendations of ITU-2000 is, in my mind, the most important challenge facing this conference and the absolute minimum that must be done to ensure that the ITU reflects the changing nature of the telecommunications sector and that it remains relevant to the real needs of its Member States and Sector Members.

Let me repeat. ITU-2000 is a bare minimum. I hope that you will find the wisdom and courage to go even further.

This is my main message to you today.

To reinforce this message, I would like to share with you some good advice that I received from the World Telecommunication Advisory Council, the group of industry leaders set up to advise me as a result of a recommendation of the High Level Committee.

This advice is that the ITU should operate "as if" it were a private entity -- particularly in the Standardization Sector where almost all the work is done by our Sector Members.

As I interpret this message, it does not mean that the ITU should be privatized. It only means that we should aim to be as efficient as possible in our operations, and try to apply techniques that have worked well in the private sector -- such as strategic, financial and operational planning, the delivery of services on a value-for-money basis, and human resource management and development -- adapting them as need be to the requirements of an intergovernmental organization.

In my mind, operating "as if" we were a private organization is one of the best ways of ensuring that the ITU continues to reflect the changes that are taking place in the telecommunications environment, that it remains relevant to the needs of its membership, and that it continues to be a leader in the movement to reform the United Nations system.

I would like to give you one other and somewhat related message.

Although the Sectoral advisory bodies were first established at the 1992 Additional Plenipotentiary Conference, it is only in the last four years that we have had real experience with them. Although there was some uncertainty -- even at the Kyoto conference -- about the wisdom of involving representatives of both Member States and Sector Members in giving advice on matters of strategy and policy, I think it is fair to say that these concerns have been allayed, and that the Sectoral Advisory bodies have not only proven their worth, but returned the modest investment which has been made in their activities many times over.

I therefore hope that this conference will not only confirm, but actually strengthen, the role that these bodies play in the activities of the Union.

Mr. Chairman,