TONGA GOVERNMENT PORTAL

Secretary General of the ITU, Dr. Hamadoun Toure,
Excellencies of the Panel,
Moderator Mr. Jay Naidoo,
Distinguished Delegates,
Media Representatives,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour to be here in Geneva for the ITU Telecom World 2011, and to join together with you all in celebrating the fortieth anniversary of hosting this auspicious world event. I wish to congratulate the Secretary General of the ITU and his staff, the organizers, sponsors and all the people who have helped to make this fourth yearly event a success. I hope that this great achievement will continue in years to come.

Congratulations also to the inauguration of ICT Discovery tomorrow, the ITU's new state-of-the-art museum to celebrate the achievements of ICT in its important role in supporting us as people to live a better life, liberation of societies, and brining the world as one. I am sure more milestones will be laid in the future as ICT is taking our planet to new level.

I also take this opportunity to join others before me in welcoming our newest country member, South Sudan, to the family of the ITU. I wish you all the best in your quest to develop and promote the economic and social welfare of your new Government and your people. And as well said by the Secretary General, the ITU will work alongside with national authorities to leverage the power of technology to assist your country achieve national objectives, pride and aspirations.

Today, I will shortly talk about Financing the Industry in Challenging Times viewed from my own experience coming from a Small Island State economy in the Pacific, although the topic itself is a global challenge facing us all in this ICT age. As we all experience, ICT has enormous power to change economic structures and greatly contribute to economic prosperity and a better quality of life. It enriches people's lives through providing greater choice and supporting social, welfare and cultural activities. It prospers even at these trying times of economic fall-out from the global financial crisis of 2008/09. As such, we should not shy away from addressing and finding new funding networks to support this important industry which it seems the only industry withstanding the financial crisis.

There is a philosophy that the ICT industry is or should be self-funded, let the industry support funding its own development between the industry and the customers and the end-users. It may be true in some ‘have' economies but it remains a major challenge in ‘have not' economies like my country, especially funding larger developmental projects which usually involved heavy investments to provide basic ICT infrastructure. Government simply does not have the financial capability, resources or capacity to assist. We therefore, look forward for the continued assistance of our development partners, donor agencies in particular, to support funding the development of ICT infrastructure in my country.

At the same time, development and funding of ICT services and applications must be driven not only by local market parameters, but a recognition that the global nature of the information economy transcends national borders and interests. Government must provide a robust policy and regulatory framework that ensures competition encourages growth and to nurture a sustainable and financially viable communications sector, maximize infrastructure availability, support new industry investment, and maximizing economic benefits from communications assets. It should be based on the need for every citizen to get access to ICT tools so that they can all share the benefits of ICT.

This is where the ITU is very good at and I must commend you on your tireless effort in supporting us to develop our ICT policy, regulatory functions and legal measures. It really helps us to approach our development partners with confidence that those ICT infrastructural projects will not only be sustainable but also beneficial to our people, and our children.

These efforts have resulted in the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank providing over US$27 million as grant to build and connect Tonga to a submarine cable system for the first time, is just one example of what I have alluded to. We have just issued the license of the local company to manage this submarine cable system, which contains the regulatory measures to ensure that the company is financially viable to deliver the benefits of this important project to the people.

In all, our collective effort here at this Summit is aimed at working together in partnership to develop a common vision and better understanding of financing ICT industry in our own country. Let us not put these funding arrangements as barrier to ICT development since ICT has offered a historic and an unprecedented opportunity not only to bridging digital divide but also placing its potential at the service of humanity to make our world a better place.

Before closing, please allow me on behalf of my delegation and the Government of the Kingdom of Tonga, to convey our most sincere and heartfelt gratitude to the Secretary General of the ITU and to all those who have helped for the logistical planning and arrangements of this World Event; and the Government and people of this most beautiful country of Switzerland and in particular Geneva for being an excellent host, and for your kind hospitality that have been duly accorded to us during our stay.

Thank You.

Issued by the; Ministry of Information and Communications, Nuku'alofa 2011.