 Your Excellency, Engineer Yasai Elkhadi, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Chairman of the Board of the National Telecommunication Authority, Regulatory Authority, and Chairman of GSR 16. Engineer Mustafa Abdul Wahab, Acting Executive President of the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of Egypt, Mr. Ulinzao, Secretary-General of ITU, Mr. Ibrahim Alhadat, ITU Regional Director for Arab States, Mr. Abdul Karim, Smaila Secretary-General of African Telecommunication Union, CEOs, Chairman, Director-General of National Telecommunication Authority, Representative of the private sector, all other dignitaries here present, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen. It is indeed my great pleasure and privilege to welcome you to the 16th Annual Global Symposium for Regulators here in the beautiful city of Shalmashhek, held under the auspices of the Excellency Abdul Fata El Sisi, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt. I would like first and foremost to thank His Excellency, Engineer Yasir Alhadi, for his usual and strong support to ITU and for having honored us which is present here today. I would like also to thank Engineer Mustafa Abdul Wahab Acting Executive President NTRI and the whole team for making this event possible. Thank you for the warm welcome in Egypt. Thank you also for the wonderful facilities put at our disposal for this Global Symposium for Regulators. Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, 10 years ago, broadband convergence of networks and services and next generation networks are already at the center of our discussions. Today, the world is still evolving and telecommunication and ICTs are increasingly recognized as the foundation of the economic and social development. The digital connected world is changing faster and faster. Some even call it the fourth industrial revolution. Innovation is taking place everywhere and at all levels. Driveless cars are a reality. So are mobile applications, smart grids, smart water and smart cities just to name a few. Weakers and stakeholders are changing the ICT sector to the ICT ecosystem. Consumers are becoming active players in this ecosystem and becoming themselves entrepreneurs, content producers and investors. We are witnessing growth of infrastructure and connectivity globally more than 140 countries have deployed 4G networks and 5G promises to open new opportunities and boost the commodization of the internet of things and cloud services. The deployment of optical fiber backbones and the development of satellite technologies, solar power drones and balloon technologies represent further opportunities to connect people around the world. We are very happy to be here today in Egypt where the national ICT strategy under the high patronage of an excellency President Al-Sisi provides that access to information and communication services and affordable place is a right for all the citizens including people with disabilities. There was no better place to have GGSR than Egypt. Personally, I attended the conference on people with disabilities just Monday in Cairo under the high patronage of the president to show you how, at a very high level here, ICT are taken as the main driver of the economy. What is absolutely true today is that no one and no sector can imagine life without ICTs. Just think about health, finance, education, electricity and transportation as well as tourism, music, media and sports. All the untapped potentials of ICT are still to be discovered and we are lucky. The brilliant young minds what we call our digital natives are our main asset. In building smart societies, policy makers, regulators, private sector and order and all stakeholders can establish an inclusive dialogue to foster an enabling regulatory environment across all sectors in order to put a human face on ICT and to tap into the potentials of ICTs for sustainable development. We need to move from vertical policy and regulations to collaborative policy and regulation in order to build smart society. This year, GSI will shed light on digital financial inclusion. It is estimated that more than 2 billion people mainly in the developing countries are considered as financially excluded. On the other hand, we have more than 7.2 billion mobile subscriptions. As you can see, the critical mass of infrastructure is there and we also know that applications are up and running. What is needed is collaborative regulation between the ICT sector and financial and banking systems as we discussed yesterday in the pre-event on global dialogue on digital financial inclusion. The Global Symposium for Regulators is helping us create the building blocks for this smart society we all want to live in during our lifetimes and sustain for future generations. This reminds me an old proverb that says we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children. So let's play our part to facilitate the attainment of sustainable development goals and build a better future for our people. Before I conclude, I would like again to thank you all for joining us here for GSR 16 and also to thank Mr. Ulinzao, the Secretary-General of ITU for his support, turbidity and his support to GSR. He never missed one of them and he just traveled all along at night to be here with us this morning. Thank you Ulinzao for your support. So I wish you very fruitful discussion and I thank you. Asalaamu alaikum warahmatu lewa barakatru.