ECONOMY
Geneva hosts Annual session of ITU Council
Baku, May 14, AZERTAC
The annual session of the Council - the governing body of the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) has started in Geneva (Switzerland). Among other matters, ITU Council will examine in detail the implementation of the strategic plan and activities of the Union for 2014-2015 and the annual budget for 2016-2017.
Speaking at the opening of the Council session, ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao noted that this year’s meeting of the Council is the first since the Plenipotentiary Conference.
“We help the ICT/telecommunications industry and markets with innovations and sustainable new technologies,” “I will continue working closely with the elected officials and ITU staff to best serve the Union and we will continue to improve our efficiency without sacrificing quality”, Mr Zhao added.
Mr Wonki Min, Chairman of Council emphasized that, this Council session is extremely meaningful for all of us because we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of ITU. “For a century and half, the Union has strived to enhance the lives of citizens around the world through the application of ICT”, he said.
Azerbaijan for the first time scored 94 votes in the elections held on October 27, 2014, as a result of which the country was elected to the Council from the region ‘C’ (Eastern Europe and Northern Asia). Among the candidate countries for the ITU Council membership from a group of countries in the C region were Azerbaijan, Poland, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Romania, Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Besides Azerbaijan, four countries: Poland, Russia, Romania and Bulgaria were also elected for 5 vacancies. Azerbaijan has also become one of the two countries, which were elected to the ITU Council in the history of the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications (RCC).
ITU is the leading United Nations agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs). For nearly 150 years, ITU has coordinated the shared global use of the radio spectrum, promoted international cooperation in assigning satellite orbits, worked to improve communication infrastructure in the developing world, and established the worldwide standards that foster seamless interconnection of a vast range of communications systems.