Address
by the Prime Minister of Morocco
Mr. Abderrahman Youssoufi

Your Excellencies the Ministers,
The Secretary-General of the ITU,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is indeed with pleasure and gratitude that I address myself to your august gathering, to convey to you the welcome extended to all of you by his Majesty King Mohammed VI to the Kingdom of Morocco, as well as that of the Moroccan people and of the Government of Morocco, which is proud of your presence here. You have come from all over the world, motivated by a common purpose: to preserve the ITU, strengthen its structure and develop its working procedures, so as to absorb all the latest developments and modern technologies related to communications and information. Furthermore, the venerable city of Marrakesh is proud to stand before its peers throughout the world for having been chosen as the venue for your conference.

It will spend an entire month in harmony with the cadence of your activities, welcoming your presence here in such great numbers and at such a high level of representation, and looking forward to your becoming acquainted with its beauty and charm, and through it with the long history of Morocco and its civilization which goes back more than fourteen centuries. On this occasion I wish to thank the ITU for having chosen Marrakesh as the venue for the sixteenth session of your world conference, crucial in the 137 years that have elapsed since the establishment of the Union.

All Morocco is most proud to have here such an august assemblage of personalities and dignitaries of world renown in a domain which has in the last decade permeated all aspects of human life and has become an activity vital and indispensable to humankind, to the extent that communications and information have become major tools of social interlocution, the intensive possession of which has become a true indicator of the economic power of countries.

Your presence in this ancient and historic city, Morocco's living memory of its passage through successive eras, extending over more than one thousand four hundred years, will undoubtedly enable you to become acquainted with the many aspects of Morocco, through your appreciation of the depth of its history, your feeling of its romance, and the depth of human feeling which you will encounter during your stay and your travels throughout the Kingdom.

The ITU, in its original form when it was called the International Telegraph Union, has been known to the Moroccans since 1906, when the then Sultan of Morocco, Moulay Abdelaziz, realized the role of the telegraph in modernization and became particularly interested in it. He established the first private telegraph company and dispatched the first Moroccan delegation to participate in an international telegraph conference, held in Berlin in 1906, and known as the International Radiotelegraph Conference.

Since then, Morocco has constantly followed all the activities of the ITU and has intensified its participation in its meetings, supporting it in its functions and participating through its able staff in its administrative and functional management. In view of the results it has achieved since its establishment in 1865, it may be said that the ITU can be proud that it has remained throughout all these years the main authority regulating all the new developments witnessed by the world of today in the fields of communications, radio and television broadcasting, communication satellites and global information networks, of which communications constitute the nerve centre.

The Moroccan Government has in recent years devoted its attention to the development of the communications and information sector in general and to the modernization of its institutions, to make it a tool for modernization of the country and achieving accelerated development, relying on it as a source for strengthening the national income. The positive results thereof have benefited all social strata, becoming an important strategic element in the country's economic development. It has received huge investments from both the State and the private sector and has been given all due attention. The Moroccan Government has also adopted an accelerated development policy with regard to this vital domain, relying in that on the positive participation of the private sector, calling on global expertise, opening it up to free competition based on transparency and equality, and having recourse to external investment whenever available.

Following the great and gratifying results achieved by Morocco in recent years, with the adoption and implementation of an ambitious open-door policy in the fields of communication and information, in close cooperation between the government and private sectors, the present government has directed some other sectors of the economy which were until recently the immediate responsibility of the State, to follow in their development the same path which we took to develop this sector in our country, in order to bring about a sustainable development compatible with the aspirations of the country to an accelerated economic development.

Your conference coincides with a crucial stage in the qualitative move by Morocco in its democratic process, to select the members of the Chamber of Deputies by elections, which the government, under the high and direct guidance of his Majesty King Mohammed VI, is concerned should be fair and transparent, so that their results can reflect the reality of the Moroccan political scene before the national and international public opinion. This is primarily for the benefit and good of the Moroccan people to ensure conditions conducive to raising the level of economic development, and consequently the standard of living of all segments of the Moroccan people, and to ensure conditions for its advancement to the ranks of the developed countries.
Nevertheless, Morocco, like other developing countries, is striving to catch up with modern technology and to adapt to the rapid changes in the world of communications and information. In this it relies on its material and human resources, so as to avoid the digital gap which has come to separate peoples, and even segments of a single society, a situation that requires joint efforts through close international cooperation for the benefit of the less developed countries, in order to meet the challenges of development in a world which has come to be characterized by violent convulsions and crises.

We are confident that the ITU is working for the benefit of those peoples, in the framework of its policy to develop communications and modernize equipment, particularly in limited-income countries, as well as its efforts to assist with the training and preparation of specialized human resources, thus creating conditions favourable to ensuring the full utilization by its Member States of the economic progress at present enjoyed by the world.

At this point, I should like to address to you who are responsible for the development of the global communications development strategy, an appeal on behalf of the developing countries, particularly the African countries, to which this country is proud to belong, that the developed countries interested in the stability and economic development of those countries hasten to commit themselves to assist them with their integration into the new world economic order, of which communications and information are one of the main pillars.

In conclusion, I am confident that your conference will constitute a basic and crucial step in the life of this well-established Union, by which it will have been able to adapt to the new developments of modern technologies, always remaining the guiding beacon for administrations, and through them the peoples of the world, for maximum benefit from communications services and the global standardization of equipment. I also welcome you all in this hospitable country, and wish you all a most pleasant stay here in Marrakesh, and also wish your Conference every success.