H.E. Mr José CARVALHO DA ROCHA Minister , Ministry of Telecommunica-tions and Information Technologies On behalf of the Angolan Government and its Delegation I would like above all to congratulate you for your election as President of the Plenipotentiary Conference and for carrying out brilliantly this great meeting, so wishing you success. Angola recognizes the hard work that ITU has devel-oped in the last four years and ever since, thus contrib-uting to the actual stage of development of the tele-communications and information technologies sector all over the world. Our beloved country, after overcoming with suc-cess the difficult years of war, is now engaged in a peace and rebuilding era, where infrastructures rep-resent one of the main priorities for its development into an information and knowledge based economy and society. At that regard, the Angolan Government is providing a timely attention and support to telecommunications and information technologies infrastructures in order to allow a broad access to the population in every cor-ner of our country with the kind of services that might help to win the struggle against poverty and in helping at the same time the socio-economic development of Angola and its people. Ladies and Gentlemen Distinguished Delegates; Ladies and Gentlemen; At this juncture I would like to reiterate an appeal to ITU in order to fulfill its legacy and in special, to con- 152