 Madam Chair, Excellencies, Ministers, Vice Ministers, Ambassadors, Distinguished Counselors, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Colleagues, Good Morning. On behalf of my elected colleagues and the ITU staff, I welcome you to this 2017 session of ITU Council. I want to present our special welcome to those of you who are attending the Council for the first time, and to the Ministers and Vice Ministers who are with us today and during the week, who made time in their busy schedule to be here with us. Your presence means a great dear to all of us. Dear colleagues, we have seen tremendous progress in the area of information and telecommunication technologies in recent years. More people are connected. New technologies such as broadband, 4G services have been deployed. E-commerce, e-health, e-money, and many more electronic services have reached more and more people around the world. I'm pleased to see that the role of ICTs in helping to achieve the sustainable development goals is getting wide recognition. For example, ITU took part in the first-ever meeting of the digital minister long-tables of G20 in Germany last month. We were joined similar meetings of the BRIC countries and G7 countries later this year. Information technology and the digital economy can transform the lives of billions of men, women, and children. The digital revolution can transform nations' entire continents. Look at what's happened in Africa. The Transform Africa Summit that was held in Kigali last week is a great example of the transformation we are seeing on the continent as I was there to appreciate their initiative launched by the Africans and presented to the conference that ITU stands ready to work with all of them to build a smart Africa. Africa is very dynamic, not only presenting great opportunities for further development but also showing leadership in some areas. For example, North Korea members of East Africa and members of ECOWARS in the West part of Africa have already successfully eliminated rooming charges. It's an example for the rest of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, together we needed to lead the development of new technologies. Our work on 5G, big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things, already on the agenda. But we needed to catch up with the industry and address new frontier technologies like artificial intelligence. I'm very pleased to advise you that ITU will organize, together with XPRISE, the artificial intelligence for goods summit in Geneva from 7 to 9 June this year. And up to now, 17 United Nations agencies happily joined us to support this event. This will be a great opportunity to consult with the industry and academia and seek their opinion on how ITU and the United Nations can assist them, both with respect to innovation and development. When I make reference to you, since I got a message from Secretary General of the United Nations to ask me to take this opportunity to have good consultations with the industry. In this connection, I'm very pleased to advise you that ITU has forged deep ties with UN agencies, since I spoke to you last year. Today, ITU and WMO share the same common services such as ethics services and social welfare services. We just signed a joint statement with UNIDO and we will sign an agreement with FAO after the council. I have also strengthened our cooperation with UN women and with WHO and the long-standing cooperation between ITU and UNESCO and UNCTAC and UPU is moving to a high level. UNCTAC Secretary General, Mr. Kitwi was in Bangkok at our telecom 2016 to support our project to support ICT SMEs. I was in Shanghai November last year after telecom. For the World Health Conference organized by WHO, and I was in Istanbul in October to join the UPU conference. The heads of UNESCO, UNDP, UN Women, UPU and UNIDO, five of them joined ITU's organized session, the Broadband Commission Special Session. ITU jointly organized with World Economic Forum at Davos in January. ITU has taken measures to increase our contacts with the Geneva-based missions. ITU has provided technical briefings to the Geneva-based diplomatic community on issues like 5G and artificial intelligence. It's very important for us to help this community get familiar with our work. We will continue our efforts in this direction. ITU also looks to strengthen partnerships and cooperation with the other stakeholders. I'm very pleased to advise you that ITU received the whole team of ICANN Board here at ITU headquarters on the 5th of May. It was a very productive meeting. Both the Chair of the Board and the CEO of ICANN highly appreciated that meeting. Dear colleagues, ITU management will continue this important conversation and renew its efforts to reach out to all partners. We have worked hard to enhance the perception of ITU as a pure technical technology agency, but also one with the responsibilities and capabilities to be a good partner in development. I have conveyed this message everywhere to encourage partnership for development. Just this morning, I came from Beijing. I rushed from Geneva Airport to my office one hour earlier. In Beijing, they had a very big event, one road forum for international cooperation. Many heads of the United Nations agencies were presented. There is another perception we need to address, that the ICT industry, in particular the telecom business, is self-sufficient, self-sustainable. There is no need to worry about their investment. But we have to be careful. More than half of the world's population is still offline. Those who are not yet connected offline often live in poor areas or in areas that are difficult to reach to connect with them. We need and we have to make more efforts. Creating an attractive environment for investment in ICTs must be one of our top priorities. But I can tell you with my experiences, to change this perception is not that easy. But we need to help our industry with good investment to the ICT and telecom in the future. You all know that late last week, a massive cyber attack, perhaps the biggest cyber attack in history, caused the major disruptions to companies and hospitals in nearly 100 countries, propelling a call for greater cooperation around the world. At ITU, in our role as the facilitator for cyber security, which is Action Line 5, C5, we are committed to making the Internet more secure, safe, and choice-worthy for the benefit of all. We will try to honor our commitment and work with partners to address these important issues. Excellencies, distinguished councillors, ITU has worked hard over the last year to implement the tasks identified by PP 2014, by Councils 2015 and 2016, and by the members. The Deputy Secretary General, we are short-represented Document 35, which focuses on the progress made towards the goals and objectives of the Union and the activities undertaken since the 2016 Session of Council. I and my colleagues will be pleased to provide you clarifications if you wish to raise. You may need. A lot of important events took place over the year since our last meeting. Let me mention WTSA 2016, which happens every four years. Thank you to all the participants who have further strengthened ITU's position in the world ICT standardization field. I will work with the TSP management team and staff to implement the resolutions and decisions adopted by WTSA 2016. And we will also pay attention to address the issues raised during the assembly. Our goal is to continue to improve the ITUT environment to attract industry members and others to carry out the tasks with which you chose us. Furthermore, last year we celebrated the 60th anniversary of ITUT CCITT and the 110th anniversary of the radio regulations. This year we will celebrate the 90th anniversary of ITUR CCIR and the 25th anniversary of ITUD. We are very proud of our rich history and look to the future with confidence. Of course, later this year we will hold the World Telecommunication Development Conference WTTC-17 from 9th to 20th October in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Under the same ICTs for STGs, my special thanks to Argentina for the generous offer to host this very important conference. As Secret General, ensuring the most effective use of ITU's limited resources, including human resources and financial resources, is high on the list of my priorities. Thanks to my elected colleagues, we worked diligently to present a balanced draft budget for 2016 and 2017 in 2015. In addition, we have taken efficient measures during the budget implementation which made possible further savings of 5.2 million Swiss francs in 2016. Although the budget was already approved in 2015, as we promised you, we will not stop there. We will try our best to save money where we can. This year, once again, we have managed to present to you a balanced draft binary budget for 2018 and 2019. Once again, we did not ask for withdrawal from reserve account and this is so-called balanced budget without withdrawal from reserve account. I appreciate the excellent spirit of teamwork demonstrated by elected colleagues during the process of preparation. With sincere hope, you will endorse it after your review. But as we face an ever-increasing workload, I invite members to consider more financial support to ITU. I have discussed this issue with our members whenever I had the chance and the response has been so far quite positive, even though many of you are facing financial difficulties at home. I want to thank you for your understanding and your support. Thank you to those of you who have decided already to increase your contribution unit to ITU by 2018. I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank our staff for their support and dedication. ITU staff is one of our most valuable resources. The success of the union cannot be achieved without ITU staff. I'm calling on you, dear councillors, to help us with those staff-deleted issues to be reviewed by Council 2017. We highly value your support, and in particular for those difficult issues you will have to discuss at the following sessions. Ladies and gentlemen, the UN SDGs present a word in which there is no poverty, zero hunger, where people live healthy lives. A word where everyone has access to quality education, to water and sanitation and to affordable and clean energy. A word where women, youth and SMEs are empowered by ICTs to tap into social development opportunities. In this world, everybody has further new opportunities. No one should be left behind. We all wish to make that world a reality by 2030. The sustainable development goals are an incredible opportunity for all of us, and information and communication technologies will be essential. The world needs the SDGs, and the SDGs need ICTs. As the UN Specialized Agency for ICTs, ICTU must fulfill its mandate and responsibility. I'm confident you will do your best to strengthen ITU. ITU will not disappoint you. I count on you. I wish you a successful and enjoyable Council 2017. Thank you.