 Welcome to the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2018 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where I am very pleased to be joining the studio today Mr. Bakhtiyar Mamadov who is the Chief Lawyer for the Ministry of Transport Communications and High Technologies for Azerbaijan. Welcome to the studio. Thank you very much for your invitation, it's a great pleasure to be here. I'd like to start off by talking a little bit about the power of information communication technologies. There's currently considerable attention being placed on harnessing the power of ICTs as an enabler for good. Wanted to ask you what's your personal perspective on this? Information technologies became a part of our life. Without information technology we can't live and every person, every society, states feel a relationship with information technologies. And we as a part of the world in Azerbaijan also pay a lot of attention for being part of this process. Azerbaijan since 1992 member of the International Telecommunication Union and we always tried to be active member of the International Telecommunication Union. After immediately World Cemetery and Information Society in 2004, new ministry, Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies has been established in the Republic of Azerbaijan. And since 2004 this ministry went through the different changes and now portfolio of ministry is extending and now ministry is responsible for transport, communications and high technologies which means that all these fields directly related with the development of the information technologies and ministry is a state body which coordinates efforts in this field. Now this plenipotentiary conference is the first since the world agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. I wanted to ask you could you please provide us with some examples of how ICTs are helping to drive sustainable development in your country. ICT as I mentioned is essential part of our life and since in 2015 United Nations General Assembly approved sustainable development goals. One of the fields of sustainable development goals is extending of the innovations. Just one of the sample of this process and Azerbaijan's participation in this process This is recently on 5th November while we had here in conference President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev issued a special decree on creation of the Innovation Center under auspices of the Ministry of Transport, Communication and High Technology. This center has been established on the basis of the two institutions with the minister of transport, communication and high technologies. This were ICT, Fount and High Tech Park. Why it's such a necessary because innovation is important in various fields and state body which coordinates various efforts in different fields on innovation is important and for this reason a new state branch under auspices of our ministry has been established. But so far ministry did a lot work for implementing of this goal, sustainable development goals and ICT application, ICT solution implemented in various fields where ministry has a charge for example in postal system, in transportation system, in telecommunication field also in providing of the secure internet. Also another sample of the Azerbaijan's effort not just within the country also internationally Azerbaijan initiated creation of the super highway fiber optic super highway and this project calls in Azerbaijan TASSIM abbreviation and I would like to highlight that United Nations Security Council and United Nations General Assembly supported this initiative a special resolution devoted to this matter which means that countries should together with assistance of the other international institution help and to make connectivity easier through the allocating of the fiber optic infrastructure and Azerbaijan promotes this idea. Now let's talk a little bit about countries working together about half the world's people are connected to the internet the other half is not. What is Azerbaijan doing in to get everyone connected in terms of the global perspective? I would like to mention that when president of Azerbaijan participated in 2003 in Geneva World Cemetery on Information Society he sounded slogan let's convert black gold into human gold. As you know that Azerbaijan has reached all resources but all this kind of temporary richness and paying a lot attention to the human capital transferring material resources into human resources is important and Azerbaijan declared this as a target of its process and this also implemented in various fields in education in other fields of the economy such as economic development or agriculture etc. Of course digital bids is important for entire world and for avoiding of this digital divide and making easier access for everyone government of Azerbaijan supported initiative to build fiber optic infrastructure entire country and making accessible internet for everyone including the villages and especially for high speed internet let's say very rural areas 10 megabyte second but in towns and cities at least 30 megabyte second and this initiative supported based on internal resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Same idea also helps for making a bridge on digital divide because through the distribution of the easy access for the internet of course many people could have and also we have to mention that access to high speed internet totally change lifestyle of all the people they could have access to education now worldwide a lot of opportunities for getting education distance education telemedicine also important let's say having through this data you could have access to best medical services also another opportunity in agriculture rural areas people having access to the internet they could easily sell their very we have the famous organic products in Azerbaijan and it will make their life easier and they will have access to the markets for selling of different commodity and for this reason we pay a lot of attention for helping and making easy access to high speed good quality internet for in entire country. Finally I'd like to give you a brief opportunity just to round this off by get a message for participants here at the planning potential conference and to our wider audience as well. Thank you very much Azerbaijan is proud that we participate in this conference our minister of transport communication and technologies was ahead of the delegation of Azerbaijan delivered policy statement Azerbaijan about Azerbaijan ICT development also it's remarkable that Azerbaijan second time has been elected to the ITU council and representative Azerbaijan also elected to the radio regulation board this is also double kind of proud for us which means that also a lot responsibility will join to the process of the managing and I wish to all participant of the planning potential conference efficient working gaining results and coming to a mutual conclusion on various resolution which in the end will make easily a regulation in this field and which will make connectivity efficiently for entire world. Mr. Mamadov thank you very much indeed. Yeah, welcome. Thank you.