Mr. Chairman,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to thank the WTO for inviting the ITU to open this Special Session on Telecommunications today.

I would also like to convey Mr. Yoshio Utsumi’s apologies , for not being able to be here with you today to make these opening remarks.

Trade underlies economic growth and wealth. Without a vibrant and active trading community, societies become stagnant or fall backwards in their socio-economic development.

Trading activities have become, over time, heavily reliant on communication services. In the early days, trading routes across political and geographical borders provided the basis for international trade. . Today, telecommunication networks are instead the nervous system upon which most global trade flows every day.

The term “Electronic commerce” is in some ways a misnomer. It is not really about commercial activities over electric wires.

Technically, a more precise term would be “Tele-communications commerce”. Of course, it is not a very catchy term nor I would use it in a TV add, but one has to recognize that it does reflects more clearly and precisely what is that we are talking about. That is, trade related transactions over telecommunications networks.

For this reason, while addressing issues related to electronic commerce, one should keep in mind that the power of electronic commerce lies on the power of the Internet. And the Internet is powerless without an adequate telecommunication infrastructure and services.

In this world of interdependence and convergence, accumulated evidence shows, however, that telecommunication markets tend to grow slowly unless they are placed under competitive pressure.

Yet, in a networked market—such as telecommunications—competition is unlikely to flourish unless it is supported and encouraged by the presence of a well endowed and capable industry-specific regulator.

Certainly, competition laws and competition agencies are an alternative to be considered in the coming years.

In most developing nations, however, the scarcity of competition legislation and competition authorities makes it very difficult, at this stage, to consider solutions to the challenges laid down by liberalization, other than the setting up of an independent, professional regulator, capable of promoting competition in a transparent and fair manner.

The goals and objectives of telecommunication regulators are, on the other hand, by no means easy to achieve.

Not even in countries where regulators have gained extensive experience in dealing with competitive markets, has effective competition progressed as fast as initially expected. The slow evolution of effective competition in the United States and the United Kingdom are a point in case.

This has led to an increasing awareness that the most challenging aspects of telecommunications reform is not the opening of markets to competition or the privatization of stated owned operators, but the setting up of a well staffed and capable regulatory agency.

With this, I am trying to indicate that this is the first, but probably not the last meeting of this nature.

We will probably meet again, sometime in the not so distant future, to review progress and to address new and emerging needs in this area.

Telecommunication regulators are set to remain a key to the solution of the trade and development puzzle in the years to come.