 The ITU Secretary-General, Mr. Hawley Nizaw, the Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Malcolm Johnson, your Excellencies, Ministers, and Heirs of Delegations, dear delegates and participants, ladies and gentlemen, assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. It is a great pleasure for me, on behalf of the Universal Postal Union, to address the 2018 ITU Planning Potentially Conference. Thank you, Secretary-General, for your kind invitation. I would like to take this opportunity to thank United Arab Emirates for hosting this important congress. The International Telecommunications Union is the oldest international organization having been established in 1865. The Universal Postal Union followed barely 10 years later and was established in 1874. It is no coincidence that the world leaders prioritized these two organizations as the pioneers of international cooperation. They just followed the patterns of human needs. First for the people to know one another, they must communicate. Then after that, they need to exchange goods, presents, and other physical items. That is what ITU and UPU facilitated, and that's what they represent. Henceforth, the posts on telecommunications have always and continue to play complementary roles in providing service to the citizens of the world. All over the world, the establishment of telecommunications services has been done together with that of the post. The ministers I see at this conference are the same ones that attend UPU events. It means most governments continue to see the correlation or correlations between the posts and the telecommunications services. With the rapid advancement of telecommunications and digital space over the years, the posts at some point worried that its relevance was dying and being replaced by the faster and versatile internet communications. Indeed, the business of the letter posts main service, the letter declined, and it has continued to do so even to this day. Social communication has almost wholly moved to the electronic platform. Moreover, the advancement in telecommunications has given birth to electronic transactions. Online trading is now the fastest growing components of local and international business in all parts of the world. This phenomena has not only brought back the links between the posts and telecommunications but has actually strengthened it. More than any time before, the two services are inseparable. The two biggest concerns of customers shopping on internet are firstly, whether their online payment is secure, and secondly, whether they will receive their correct purchases and in good time. The first concern is dissolved by telecommunications while the post addresses the second aspect. The ITU and the UPU are involved in many collaborative activities, especially geared towards the attainment of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. As partners, we are collaborating under the agencies of a joint working group on the financial services to address some of the key challenges in the digital financial space, such as security, interoperability, and customer protection. Your Excellencies' UPU is also involved with ITU and other partners in financial inclusion global initiative. This is a working group that delivers research, technical tools, and policy recommendations to advance financial inclusion leveraging digital technologies. To support the e-commerce ecosystem in which post is a key player, UPU is running major projects on operational readiness for e-commerce among its member states. This is aimed at ensuring the entire postal global network has capacity to play in the e-commerce sphere. With this project, we are addressing issues of key concerns to ITU, like cybersecurity and connectivity reliability. Your Excellencies' current UPU strategy is anchored on three pillars of innovation, integration, and inclusion. The pillars are very much aligned to ITU's five strategic goals. The UPU strategic pillars are applied in all the three dimensions of the postal business, namely the physical, financial, and electronic. The relationship between the post and the telecommunications and by extension UPU and ITU will continue as long as communication continues being the central component of human interaction. This is because to complete human demand cycle, the virtual must facilitate access to the physical. To conclude my remarks, I wish to call upon governments to invest in the digital transformation of the postal sector in order to increase social and economic inclusion to all citizens. For even the most robust telecommunication network will not deliver value to citizens if other crucial physical infrastructures is not in place. The postal infrastructure is key to achieving a sustainable digital economy for all. The post has the largest physical network and it's more than 640,000 global outlets outlets serve all corners of the world, including the remote and difficult to access locations. It is the second largest financial service provider after commercial banks. All these are important components to facilitate public service in all countries of the world. With digitalization, our postal outlets, we will move faster to attain most of the SDGs, including involving inclusions. Finally, I wish to point out here that the UPU and ITU normally benchmark with each other in many areas, including governance and administrative matters. Recently, the UPU carried out a major reform that was supported by all member countries. I would like to thank the ministers present here for your support for the changes in the Universal Postal Union. With reforms, we are now experiencing greater efficiency in our work and have achieved equitable representation of all our regions in the union. We involved ITU in this reform process and I'm sure they also have benefited from our experience. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I come here to really give support to our colleagues in the ITU and to give you all our encouragement in your reform agendas. Thank you very much for your attention.