Policy Statement by the Nepalese Honourable Minister of
Information and Communications Mr. Jaya Prakash Gupta
Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union

Mr. Chairman,
Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union
Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

It gives me a great pleasure to congratulate you, Mr. Chairman, on your assumption of the high office of the chairman of this very distinguished gathering. On behalf of the Delegation of Nepal, and on my own, I would like to express our full Confidence on your leadership. You can count on our delegation's full support in your deliberations.

It is indeed a matter of great pleasure for us to be in this famous and beautiful city of Morocco. I take this opportunity to thank the Royal Government of Morocco for the excellent arrangements made for the smooth conduct of the conference and for our memorable stay. I bring with me the good wishes and greetings from the people and Government of the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal.

We deeply appreciate the good work being carried out by the ITU in the development of the Telecommunications. I thank the Secretary General, Deputy Secretary General, the Directors and the Secretariat staff for their untiring efforts to make ITU a dynamic international organization able to meet the aspirations of all its 189 members. In the ever-changing telecommunication Scenario of the world, all members have high expectations from the ITU.

Mr. Chairman,

Before elaborating our comments regarding Strategic Plan of the union for 2003-2007, I would like to briefly mention our endeavours in Nepal towards the development of telecommunication sector.

Having recognized the importance of telecommunication as an increasingly important factor for economic development, social inclusion and welfare enhancement of the nation, His Majesty's Government of Nepal has initiated a number of actions for the reform of the telecommunications environment in Nepal. Soon after the passage of the Telecommunications Act in 1997, Nepal Telecommunications Authority was established. In accordance with the progressive telecommunications policy brought out in September 1999, private sector participation has been promoted in all market segments to ensure qualitative telecommunications services at competitive rates. As a result, over 80 licenses have been issued for V-SAT operations (10), radio paging (8), Internet service providers (18), WLL telephone services, cellular mobile service. Under the government and private initiatives, plans are underway to extend the services of telecommunications to various towns and villages using both satellite and terrestrial based wireless technologies. We are thankful to organizations like the ITU and the World Bank, who have supported us in our modest efforts.

In spite of our consistent and continued efforts, both at the policy and implementation level, we have only been able to achieve a tele-density of 1.4(14.56 in urban area and 0.125 in rural area) cellular penetration of 0.1, PC penetration of an estimated 50,000 computer sets, and Television penetration covering 44% of the country's population and 35% of land area. Of the 3,914 Village Development Committees (VDCs), only 1761 are connected with telephone lines. Upon completion of the current 5 year Plan the penetrations are expected to increase. As you might be aware your Excellency the maoists insurgents have been destroying many of our infrastructure, including telecommunication installations disrupting the service in mostly remote areas. This has also affected our effort to expand telecommunication facilites to the distant and remote areas of the country. .

Only recently, His Majesty's Government has adopted a Long-Term policy for the development of telecommunications and broadcasting. To achieve a telephone penetration between 10% to 15% by the end of year 2017, Nepal needs to invest US$ 2.3 billion between now and 2017. The huge investment needed to be made in this sector requires more support towards human resources development and selection of appropriate technology. We have full confidence that the ITU will leave no stone unturned to meet the expectation of country like ours, to fully train the manpower as well as to play a key role in establishing mutually beneficial partnership with interested Sector Members and other international organizations.

Mr. Chairman,

At this point, I would like to reiterate our undiminished faith in the united Nations system. We have always looked to the ITU for advice and support, and we fully believe that through the good offices of ITU, we can achieve the optimum results in regulation and standardization. The effective role of ITU for the development of ICT network up to the village level for use of these facilities by the common masses at affordable costs will enhance the government's efforts towards meeting the public's right to information, as guaranteed by the Constitution of Nepal. The move by the ITU Regional office to establish an Area office in Kathmandu is very welcome and we look towards it with enthusiasm. The Youth Forum programme, initiated by the ITU since 2001 is a step towards bridging the digital divide, that so much distinguishes the developed and the developing world. I express my appreciation of the ITU for its laudable efforts in initiating preparatory work for the World Summit on Information Society. In this historical endeavour, it is safe to assume that the interests of the least developed countries will be looked into as the ITU has always been doing.

We note with satisfaction the initiatives and proposals set out to meet the challenges in the 2003-2007 time frame, specially actions aimed to facilitate universal access to information technology, to provide equitable access to the radio frequency spectrum and to satellite orbits; objectives that aim to assist the developing countries in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and to provide assistance and tools for Sector Members to provide ICTs in developing country are very welcome for a least Developed country like Nepal

We appreciate the actions being undertaken by the Council and various Directorates of the Union. We express our support to the goals set out to meet the challenges in the 2003-2007 time frame. On specific proposal, however my delegation will make appropriate comments at the time of discussion.

Mr. Chairman,

You have a challenging task ahead of you, trying to coordinate the aspirations of such a large gathering of Members from highly developed, developing and the least developed countries. With the wisdom of the chair, and with the input from the distinguished delegates, the conference will be able to bring the deliberations towards equipping the countries with the appropriate tools for the 21st century.

I wish you all success,

Thank you Mr. Chairman.