 Her Excellency, Ms. Ying Lok Shinwatra, Prime Minister of Thailand. Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, before I begin, like others who have spoken before me, I take this moment to share my deepest sympathy to those affected in the Philippines with the recent natural disaster and that we pray that God will guide them and wish them a full recovery. I bring your greetings and salutations from my government and the people of Nauru. From the outset, I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to the government and people of Thailand for the warm welcome and hospitality extended to me and my delegation since our arrival yesterday. It has indeed been an interesting and most enjoyable visit to this very beautiful country and we were awed by the courtesy of its people. As a small island developing state located in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, Nauru faces many challenges in its development endeavours. Isolation, distance from markets, higher transportation costs and these economies of scale are typical challenges faced by my country and indeed also by many small island developing states around the world and especially in the Pacific. These constraints spell major impediments to development in our countries. While we do our best to address these concerns, costs for small island developing states are a real constraint on the national coffers. However, there are areas in which we believe that collaboration between states and non-state actors could produce results for improving the infrastructure of my country and other small island developing states. In the Pacific islands, we collaborate on a range of issues such as in the transportation sector, education and in other capacity building needs. It is necessary for this to happen as we need to pull our limited resources and achieve common goals and aspirations. The ICT sector on Nauru and in other in the other small Pacific island developing states is a priority development area for obvious reasons as alluded to earlier. The ICT sector on Nauru has improved drastically with the opening of the first foreign-owned ICT company in Nauru, DigiCell, in August 2009. DigiCell introduced to G-Mobile communication based on Wi-Fi Max technology. On the other hand, communications through copper cable utilizing the public switch telephone network was made redundant. However, in order to improve the ICT technology, capacity and efficiency on Nauru over the long term, a national broadband network is proposed. Apart from the obvious reasons of the benefits associated with the national broadband network linked through fiber optic cables and systems, the efficiency and savings to our tiny budget would be enormous over the long term and bring tangible benefits to our people. With our current setup, we only have a total of 15 megabyte per second available through international link. This is available via satellite C-band and DigiCell and a local internet service provider, Sandpack, an internet service provider, Sandpack. With the bandwidth limitations, there is obviously very limited capacity for expansion utilizing broadband technology. Given the obvious benefits associated, for example, with the health, education, and early warning systems associated with natural disasters through a reliable, efficient and efficient communications technology, Nauru, therefore, is very much interested in introducing communications linked through our fiber optic submarine cable and other means of addressing and improving national ICT concerns. A cable linking several Pacific Island states based on a cost-sharing arrangement might be feasible. I cannot stress enough the importance and benefits this would bring to Nauru and, indeed, other Pacific Island developing countries that have yet to be linked. Given the opportunity presented by this forum, Nauru looked forward with great enthusiasm to participate and network with interested parties in helping move forward our country and other small Pacific developing states. With that, I thank you.