 Welcome to WTDC 17 here in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I'm very pleased to be in the studio today with Mr. Afama Saga, Riko Tupai, who is the Minister for the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology of Samoa. Minister, thank you very much for joining us in the studio today. Pleasure to be here today. Now, I'd like to start off- Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you very much indeed. I'd like to start off by asking you a little bit about the overall impact of ICTs on Samoa's socioeconomic development in terms of the fact that this year's theme is ICTs for SDGs. Technology and information, digital transformation is very fast, changing in the world at the moment, and it's impacting us as well in our development. In, I've only been a Minister now for just over a year, six months, and we have done quite a bit of work and we're working at the moment to try and lock our whole digital transformation together and bring everything together for us in terms of... Internet is really impacting on us and we're trying to bring in some submarine cables, connectivity in terms of broadband. We're fast-moving in terms of our mobile broadband. Unfortunately, with the fixed broadband, we're still trying to connect our country, but international connection has been worked out at the moment. And by the end of this year, we have one submarine cable coming in. That comes via Fiji. By the end of 2018, we have another one coming via Tahiti. So we expect the growth economically and socially to be very high and increasing rapidly and dramatic reduction in costs for us through the connectivity in terms of these submarine cables. What about ICTs helping you in terms of obviously, well, it must be one of your major concerns in terms of climate change, rising sea levels, in terms of, let's say, those kind of issues, which of course you must be particularly of concern to you. Yes, the government is taking priority in terms of natural disasters and preparations, identifying and working out for the country in terms of what times and what vulnerable times for us will be in terms of tide, in terms of cyclones. So ICT is very helpful and impacting very positively on this side of our climate change preparations. Climate change impacts our lives everywhere and all the time, including livelihood. So we're hoping that the impact of internet in terms of agriculture, preparation of crops and harvesting, that's ICT and that's how much we rely on ICT in all areas of our development, especially in climate change. Would you say the major challenges or obstacles facing you in terms of using ICTs for sustainable development? Mostly, number one at the moment and priority for us is the cost. Cost is very high at the moment and very expensive in terms of connectivity. Connect to internet, to access information in terms of education, in terms of health. It's very expensive for us. And second challenge for us is in terms of isolated areas, we would like to bridge the digital divide in terms of not only infrastructure, but in terms of knowledge as well. We're trying to connect as many schools as possible at the moment domestically before the submarine cable arrives so that when the two ends are connected of the domestic connection as well as the submarine international connection, then we have information going efficiently and all over the country and everybody can easily access. And in terms of cooperation with ITU, how has your country benefited in cooperating with ITU? ITU has really assisted us in a lot of ways and if I may speak as well in terms of not just our country but the whole Pacific, all Pacific islands, we all regarded as small islands developing states and ITU, we have very much depended on ITU in a lot of things from, especially with capacity building in all areas and it's really preparing our ICT personnel and government services to be able to facilitate digital transformation and our digital economy transition. I see ITU has been really helpful in all areas for us and not only that but also assisting us in terms of infrastructure. We've had several, a number of islands in the Pacific where ITU has supplied satellite to try and cater and try and curb the problem of connectivity and internet connection in some of the isolated areas and Samoa is one of those islands and we're very happy to be recipients of a lot of ITU aid. Now this is a major event in ITU's calendar. This is basically the one that's certainly focusing on development and I wanted to ask you what do you hope will develop from this conference? What do you hope will be some of the concrete actions that come from this conference? Well, for small islands developing states we hope that the big brothers are listening in and be able to deploy infrastructure aid and capacity building, you know, not necessarily come directly to us but if they can continue to put their efforts in supporting ITU so ITU can help develop the small and developing states, I will be very good for us and that's what we would like. We've heard a couple of big nations increasing their support for ITU and that's for us is very pleasant in terms of an appreciative and appreciated in terms of the support that ITU is getting because we know for a fact that whatever ITU support that they get from the big countries it will help us a lot and continuing assistance from ITU is what we're looking forward to at the end of this conference. Well, please allow me to wish you the very best of the future and thank you very much for being with us in the studio today. Great and thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you.