APEC Weclome Speech

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2010/TEL41/PLEN/003

Agenda Item: 1

Welcome Speech – National Communications Commission Chair

Purpose: Information

Submitted by: Chinese Taipei

APEC TEL41

Welcome Speech

10 May, 2010

Minister Chang, Chairman of APEC TEL, Mr. Liu, Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning!

It’s my great honour, on behalf of the Chinese Taipei to welcome you all to the 41st Meeting of the APEC Telecommunications and Information Working Group. I thank you all for honouring us with your participation over the coming days and sincerely hope your stay in Taipei will be both an enjoyable and productive one.

After originally planning to host the 44th Meeting, Chinese Taipei was delighted to be given the opportunity to host TEL41 instead. While overcoming the obvious logistical challenges of organizing an event of this magnitude at the “last minute”, we have been greatly impressed and encouraged by the cooperation and flexibility you have all shown when coordinating the event with us. The results of such coordination are tangible enough, as I stand in the presence of delegates from 18economies and 3 guest organizations. It fills me with much hope and enthusiasm.Thank you very much.

A special mention must be given to Mr. Liu Ziping from China who will be chairing this working group. Mr Liu, a director at the Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology brings extensive knowledge and experience in information technology.We are very grateful to you.

Chinese Taipei is very delighted to have this opportunity to interact with all of you, and sincerely hope that the program we altogether have prepared will be broad yet specific enough to offer some fresh perspectives on the challenges we face together.

During TEL41, three steering groups shall discuss key issues very much on our minds. As you know, ICT is a primary factor in economic recovery. As such, we will share the “Technology Investment for Recovery” experience as part of the DSG. Broadband deployment and bridging the digital divide has becomean ever increasing important means of delivering this recovery to the community. Similarly hot issues havealso being explored as part of the LSG: regulations, digital dividend and international roaming to review the strategies in business to name a few.

And finally as part of the SPSG, Voluntary ISP Codes of Practice Workshop took place on day one with the objective of determining common ground in the areas of establishing codes of practice for internet service providers.Informing ISPs of the unified voice of APEC on this issue could indeed be the key to internet service providers voluntarily implementing such measures. Thus, although this workshop takes place over just one day, hopefully we will be able to harness the vision we share.

The workshop,“Prevention of Child Sexual Exploitation Facilitated through the Internet” is arguably more important. As we achieve our aims of providing broadband to all, the numbers of minors online is continually increasing at a rapid pace. We feel it is imperative platforms are formed to specifically deal with this issue before too long. We cannot afford to underestimate the harm caused to our young and the subsequent detriment to society.

Similarly, convergence and the liberalization it demands remains a hot topic. There is much work to be done. Nevertheless, we can feel encouraged by synergy of APEC members and the spirit of goodwill. If we remember to take some time to focus our attention on the broader context for the dialogue over the coming days, I am confident much ground can be made.

As a closing, I would like to thank all of you for youreffortsand arrangements made for this meeting. I look forward to hearing your views on all these issues and more, and thank all of you once again for joining us.I wish you every success in your deliberations, and hope you find your stay in our economy a culturally rich experience and can find some time to visit places of interest.

Thank you very much for your attention.

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