 Welcome to ITU Telecom World 2017 here in Busan in the Republic of Korea. I'm very pleased to be joined in the studio today by Zeckstein Montcita Ibrahim, who is Undersecretary for the Deputy Minister for the Department of Information and Communication Technologies for the Philippines. Mr Ibrahim, thank you very much for being with us today. And good morning and thank you for this opportunity. I'm very pleased. Well, it's wonderful to have you in the studio. Thank you. So, I wanted to ask you this, first of all, smart digital transformations, the theme of this year's event. What does that mean to the Philippines? A lot of things. First and foremost, opportunities for digital jobs. Second is for our business people the opportunity to expand their business without actually physically expanding it. And third is actually providing an excellent experience for our citizens when they transact with government. And in terms of the smart technologies nowadays, what do you think is the biggest single opportunity offered by them? Okay. We've actually set our aspirations. We have a national plan. And for example, we've decided that the delivery channel of choice is going to be the smart phones of the people. So that they can actually transact with government at any time, anywhere. And be able to do end-to-end transaction with government. It's also about being able to work from home. And Philippines today is actually one of the global leaders in the BPO, the business process of sourcing this space. However, there are places in the Philippines where connectivity is not yet present. And many to say investments are really not tracking down to the rural areas. So the question is what opportunities are available for the talents out there in the countryside. So this emerging advances in digital technologies is now providing a way for these talents to just stay there and be able to provide services from home. Exactly. So that's definitely something very, very exciting for everyone. Exactly. So they don't have to travel a million miles basically to make a living, which I think is a vital thing, of course. I mean, connectivity is very much key to the digital economy. I wanted to ask you, in terms of improving rural broadband areas, area coverage, how do you think one can do that in your opinion? Well, let me start by saying that in the Philippines today, about 30%, okay, is not yet covered by, was this my broadband? When I say broadband, it's actually, you know, fiber, was this a fiber broadband? We have Wi-Fi broadband, mobile broadband, but it's not really that robust. Now, we recently launched our five-year National Broadband Plan, which would involve government spending money to actually connect all of these islands. One thing that we need to understand about the Philippines is we are in a archipelago. It's not easy putting in all the submarine cables out there just to be able to connect islands, okay. And we have, since 1995, we have regulated our telecommunications industry. So it's really now the private sector was driving market advances there. However, these are, of course, business-driven, okay. If they don't see business viability out there, okay, they actually do not give priority to this area. So it's now incumbent for the government to actually, you know, put in the infrastructure there and probably even let, was this private sector telecommunications company to co-use the infrastructure. And in terms of useful case studies, perhaps, that you could share here in the Philippines to shorten the right-of-way process. Okay, we're actually in the process of having a policy, a national policy which is going to be signed by the president that would allow, that would mandate, okay, the physical infrastructure people to automatically put in a lot of space there for fiber to be easily laid down, okay. So can you imagine, we understand that there was this right-of-way ROW is, everywhere is actually an issue. How about making use of this, was this, you know, government assets out there, okay. We have tens of thousands of kilometers of roads out there that we can actually use. And you're a participant here for the first time at ITU Telecom World, is that right? We're so excited, okay. We've given our commitment to the secretary-general that this time we're actually going to put in a Philippine pavilion there. Of course, we need to also be exposed because we're going to be running again for the governing council next year, okay. And we need to tell them, yeah, the Philippines is out here and was this working with you guys? So we're so excited and, you know, it's also providing us the right venue for us to network with other ITU member countries here. You've been attending the sessions here, the discussions? Definitely. And, you know, very interesting sessions, okay. I think more than the exhibition, okay, it's actually the session that's really the real meat of this conference of ITU Telecom World 2017, especially was this listening to thought leaders and talking about artificial intelligence, you know, coupled with, was this internet of things and coupled with big data, mobile, was this technology, fantastic. Fantastic was this opportunity for learning, especially for us. Great. And we can learn from you as well, I'm sure. So that's wonderful. Well, thank you very much indeed for being with us in the studio today and we wish you the very best of luck and thank you for your attendance here at ITU Telecom World. Thank you so much for this opportunity and good luck to everyone. Thank you.