 It is my great honor to open the 2017 session of the ITU Council and to address you as the outgoing Chair. I would like to recognize the incoming Chair, Dr. Eva Spina, from the Administration of Italy. We shared the podium last year, the first time that both the Chair and the Vice Chair of Council were women and historic occasion. I have the utmost confidence in her leadership and wish her a very productive and successful meeting. Dear colleagues, we have seen tremendous progress in the area of information and telecommunication technologies in recent years. More people are connected. New technologies such as broadband, 4G services have been deployed. e-commerce, e-health, e-money, and many more electronic services have reached more and more people around the world. I'm pleased to see that the role of ICTs in helping to achieve the sustainable development goals is getting wide recognition. We share the same common services, such as ethics services and social welfare services. We just signed a joint statement with the UNIDO. Both populations still have a familiar result. We will continue our efforts. Distinguished colleagues, the 2017 Council has much work to do. I count on your spirit of cooperation to obtain a productive discussion on the many important issues of this year and to achieve our desired goals. Thank you.