Baku, December 3, AZERTAC

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union Houlin Zhao.

Expressing satisfaction with the meeting, Secretary-General Houlin Zhao said:

- You are the President I have met most often in the world. The Bakutel exhibition is an annual event and this year marks its 25th anniversary.

President Ilham Aliyev: Yes, it is.

Houlin Zhao: It is also an event I have visited most frequently so far.

President Ilham Aliyev: This is a good indicator of our cooperation and reflects the importance Azerbaijan attaches to the ICT sector. Of course, your personal participation in the exhibition is very important because it indicates the importance of the event for the International Telecommunication Union. We also consider this as an indicator of our performance in this sector. As you noted, this is the 25th exhibition. We see that interest is growing every year. In fact, during this exhibition, we can talk about our achievements this year. I think we have achieved very good development in the ICT sector and it remains one of our country’s top priorities. It creates a lot of new ideas, ushers new technologies and contributes to the modernization of our country.

Azerbaijan is currently at the stage of very active reforms – structural reforms, reforms related to political development, transparency. We are seeing very good results. Azerbaijan is a very stable country, and the majority of the population supports our policy. This is based on a demonstration of strong political will, as well as great achievements in the economic and social life. The current year has also been very noticeable from this standpoint. The improving daily lives of our people, the implementation of social programs, the raising of salaries and pensions – all this is an indicator of our development, of course. Of course, the ICT sector as the key driver of the economy will play a very important role in the coming years. The development of this sector will lead to a greater impact of reforms. Naturally, I want to personally thank you for your attention to our country. I am glad that you visit us every year for this exhibition. Thanks to this, we were able to establish fruitful cooperation. Thus, I am grateful to you and wish you a good time in Baku.

Houlin Zhao: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Indeed, I see the rapid development of the ICT sector in Azerbaijan. There are already many new ICT applications to cover all other ecosystems, and they have spread widely into all ecosystems. This year alone, I see not only the participation of numerous countries in Bakutel, but also a large number of new products and applications. For example, I saw that there was a detailed discussion at the exhibition about “big data”, a lot was said about artificial intelligence. They are different from each other. Also, before coming here, I familiarized myself with the stands prepared by young people. We talked a little and I realized that these children are very talented.