 Your Excellency, Group Captain Anu Deef Nakorntap, Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Kingdom of Thailand, Dr. Nolin Azair, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen. I plan to be with you today in Bangkok, but compelling reasons beyond my control have made that impossible. Please accept my sincere apologies. It is indeed my great pleasure and privilege to join our host in welcoming you to this Regional Development Forum for Asia and the Pacific. Holding this forum in the beautiful city of Bangkok is a real privilege. I would like to thank your Excellency, Mr. Anu Deef Nakorntap, and through you the government and the people of the Kingdom of Thailand for accepting to host this very important meeting. I would like also to thank Dr. Nolin Azair and colleagues from ESCAP as well as the senior officials from other Asia-Pacific countries for joining in this meeting in Bangkok. The overarching theme of this forum is ICT for Sustainable and Inclusive Development. This is a call for action, various issues such as making governance more effective through the use of ICTs, making societies safer and greener and bridging the digital divide will be extensively discussed during these three days. I have every confidence that this Regional Development Forum will help build momentum towards necessary progress. This forum is timely as it is being held at the midterm or of the four-year cycle of the World Telecommunication Development Conference. It will therefore allow us to assess the primary outcomes of the directives given to the ability in IDIRABAT and for identifying new strategies and actions that will ensure the achievement of those directives. As the director of ICT Youth Telecommunication Development Bureau, my intention is to organize a Regional Development Forum in each region every year. In order to report to you on the progress we have made in implementing the Regional Initiatives as well as about the many results we have achieved in the course of implementing other activities so that I might benefit from your feedback, comments and suggestions. The Regional Development Forum is also an opportunity to inform you about activities carried out in the region by the ITUT, ITUR and the General Secretariat. When I took office, I made very clear that my first priority is the implementation of the Regional Initiatives. Every activity of BIT is geared towards that. We have done a great deal of work and my colleague Dr. Nju Kim, the ITU Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, will report to you on action taken in Asia-Pacific region. Distinguished delegate, ladies and gentlemen, I am determined to remain close to you and to your priorities. For this reason, I will greatly value your feedback, your comments and your suggestions. I wish you a very successful meeting. I thank you very much.