 Good morning, Excellencies, Secretary-General, ITU, Distinguished Gas Delegates. On behalf of the government and the people of the Republic of Degambia, I extend our profound gratitude to the government of Romania for hosting the 2022 ITU Plenary Potentiary Conference. Thank you for the warm welcome and hospitality accord to my delegation and I since our arrival in the beautiful city of Buharis. Excellencies, the ITU-PP22 is hosted at a crucial time when the war is recovering from an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global food crisis, especially in the developing countries as a result of the war in Ukraine. The Gambia is aware of these facts and is taking into account increasing the evidence of positive collaboration between ICT and improved economic growth. The government of Degambia, under the able leadership of its Excellency President Adam Abarro, is pursued to realization of its digital transformation agenda. To this end, it has recently decoupled then the Ministry of Information, Communication and Infrastructure into two standalone ministries. The Ministry of Information Services, the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy. This policy decision is a clear statement of growing realization of the impact digital economy, digitalization in technology in the Gambia, developing process and increase the political will to support digital transformation process. The Gambia government has identified ICT sector as the recovery pursue for national development plan known as the NDP, which is currently being formulated in regard to digitalization of the economy is one of the main pillar of this development plan. The goal is to make the digitalization, clustering and accelerating economic growth, improve the efficiency in both public and private sector and threatening the competitiveness in all sector of the economy. In this regard, my ministry has initiated a large number of structural projects, including the review of information technology, information communication and technology acts to introduce the major reform of the legal and regulatory framework to better take into account the innovation and emerging technology. Develop the digital economy master plan, currently supported by the EU. Develop an e-government system and platform introduce the national ID card system. Improve the digital payment and the payment gateway. Establish a tier three national data center. Excellent distinguished delegates. The utilization of ICT in providing the services remain challenged in the Gambia. The country internet penetration stood at 51.0% of the total populations the start of 2022 with the internet user increased by 2.9% between 2021 to 2022. In fact, in the face of numerous challenges, the ICT sector contribution continued to rise over the years as it accounted 3.5% of the GDP in 2019 and 3.7% in 2021. In fact, the recent growth of the e-commerce platform uptake the mobile economy and the digital financial services. Develop an approval universal access fund and sort the universal access to equality broadband services. Integration of ATEC and ATEC in the education and agricultural sector, especially in the rural services. Digital health intervention includes the deployment of smart ITC driven by the system and application to support the provision and quality health services delivery. To this end, the Ministry of Health in the Gambia has commenced the registration of insurance digital bar certificate and health insurance ID to all Gambians in June this year. A youth unemployment supported by giving the digital start-up through the training and provision of the seed capital. The government has also earmarked on the establishment of a rural information innovation hub toward ensuring digital utilization, innovation, transformation, social economy activities of the people at the grassroots. Please distinguish delegate. In conclusion, please allow me to sincerely commend the ITU for the successful organizing a very important forum for its continued support over the years. I wish to reform the Gambia is committed to continue further collaborate with the ITU and we look forward to the support of our quest for transforming our economy into a digital economy. On a final note, I wish to solicit the support of all member states. For the Gambia candidate, his Excellency, Ambassador Professor Muamaduka, who is waiting for the position of the Director of BDC. Thank you.