Ms JETTIE OLFF Director General, Telecommunications Authority Secretary Genaral Mr. Toure and the deputy Secretary General Mr. Zhao with their re - election. Allow me to use this opportunity to provide you with some relevant information about developments in the ICT sector in Suriname. In 2007 the ICT sector was liberalized and the Telecommunications Authority of Suriname was established, which regulates and con-trols the ICT sector. Two new mobile operators have entered our market and the incumbent provides both fixed and mobile services. The benefits of the liberalization, which were predicted by the ITU and other international organizations, have been also experienced in Suriname. For example an increase in teledensity, competitive rates, significant improvements in the quality of services, additional in-vestment in infrastructure and most importantly the provision of telecommunications services in rural ar-eas Mr. Chairman, Honourable Ministers Excellencies heads of delegations Secretary-General and other Directors and Staff of the ITU Distinguished delegates Ladies and gentlemen, It is a great pleasure to address you today on behalf of the government of the Republic of Suriname. without a USO Fund. The teledensity in mobile telephony has increased from 68.6% in 2007 to 148% in 2009. Fixed telephony has been increased from 14.8% in 2007 to 16.2% in 2009. The end user rates for mobile telephony have dropped by between 25 and 28%. In Suriname, we have used the public private partner-ship policy being promoted by the ITU to increase rural access. An article about rural access in Suriname was published in the ITU magazine of June 2010 and we are very proud of that! May I begin by congratulating the government of Mexico for its decision to host the Plenipotentiary Conference 2010 and for the very warm welcome that my delegation has received since our arrival in this lovely country. I would also like to congratulate the The broadband penetration rate at the other hand is only 10%. We realize that there is much work left for us to increase broadband internet penetration in Suriname . 200