H. E. Ambassador Ronaldo Mota SARDENBERG President, National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL) At the same time, ITU must rationally balance its fi-nancial Mr Chairman, Honorable Ministers and Ambassadors, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is an honor to address this conference on behalf of the Government of Brazil. We wish to congratulate the Government of Mexico for hosting this important conference and to express our appreciation for the warm welcome we have received in this beautiful city of Guadalajara. and human resources. The administrative and financial questions are always best treated with maxi-mum transparency. Our finances must be managed carefully and linked to the strategic objectives defined by this conference. Mr President, I would like to take a moment to pinpoint some of Brazil’s basic positions at this Conference. First, we strongly favor free online access to ITU-R Recommendations as a way of further increasing the transparency, availability and effectiveness of the ITU decisions. The trial period has demonstrated that this is greatly valued by ITU stakeholders, and we believe that the theme is mature enough to be definitely decided upon at this Conference. Secondly, the regional presence of the ITU has proved to be primordial in the functioning of the organization, as it has brought the organization closer to the Member States and has thus permitted a better perspective of the regional realities. Nevertheless, there is still room for the strengthening of this presence, in order to fully per-ceive Mr. President, As in any organization, improvements at ITU may only be achieved through a constant re-evaluation of current practices. Brazil strongly supports the work of the Union in many fields. We have, over the past years, participated actively in the many different study groups and working groups of the three sectors and the Council. In addition to our commitment to contribute technically to the work of ITU, we are pleased to host the ITU Regional Office for the Americas, which is located within the premises of Anatel, the national regulatory agency, at our expense. There is no risk of a change in this policy. As a result of our strong commitment to the work of the Union, we believe that an in-depth assessment of some objectives and administrative procedures must be made. We wish ITU to be viewed as an organization prepared to deal with the challenges of the current and future telecommunication scenarios. To make this possible, the ITU needs to be a strong or-ganization, and follow the challenges of each region. Having this in mind, I would like to stress the importance of ap-pointing a new Head of the ITU Regional Office for the Americas as soon as possible. In addition, the ITU Telecom Exhibitions need to be rede-fined in order to better respond to the real needs of the organization. We wish to applaud the recent redesign of the Telecom as a further attempt to make it valuable, but we would insist on the fact that these events must be profitable, since their conceptual framework seems distant from the original objectives of the Union. The exponential growth of the Internet has given ITU a central role in questions related to Internet. This in-cludes and must maximize its resources in order to actions such as discussing Internet related public cope with these new challenges. policy issues, building confidence and security in the use 116