Thank you very much Mr. Chairman,

Your Excellencies, honorable participants, and dear colleagues, please allow me to express my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for the efforts made by ITU Secretary-General Dr. Hamadoun Touré; Mr. Brahima Sanou, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau; and other members of the ITU Secretariat, as well as for all the hospitality by the host nation of The United Arab Emirates who helped to make this conference possible.

I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to make this statement at the 6th World Telecommunication Development Conference here in Dubai.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to make this statement.

On March 11th 2011, Japan was struck by the Great East Japan Earth Quake, which caused tremendous damage to human lives, transportation systems, electricity infrastructure, as well as telecommunication networks.

Communication measures were lost because of blackout, destruction of infrastructure, and, in addition, paralysis of total telecommunication networks caused by communication traffic congestion.

The ITU kindly offered 153 satellite mobile phones to us that time. They played very important roles in essential communication for various parties such as medical teams and disaster headquarters in the affected areas.

Japan also received other wide range of supports from all over the world.

Japan will never forget our appreciation to you.

After that event, our policy emphasis was put on disaster prevention and disaster preparedness. In this regard, we are prepared to cooperate with other countries sharing our experiences, knowledge, technologies, and capacity building.

In March 2013, Japan hosted ITU-D SG2 Rapporteur Group Meeting for Utilization of Telecommunications/ICTs for disaster preparedness, mitigation and response.

In the same month, Japan and ITU co-hosted a symposium on disaster communications in Sendai, the city hit by the earthquake.

In this regard, we recognize that the new Initiative by ITU, Smart Sustainable Development Model, SSDM, with measures against disasters in scope, is a very important effort.

ITU-D holds out "Broadband for sustainable development", as a main theme of WTDC-14.

Japan is determined to work with ITU to realize better access to broadband, better solution to socio-economic agenda utilizing ICT, coupled with sufficient security measures in every corner of the world.

We will continue to be active in cooperative activities such as technology transfer, capacity building programs, and research and development.

Japan strongly believes that WTDC-14 will mark an important corner stone for the sustainable global development utilizing the fast developing information technologies.

We look forward to cooperating with you and supporting the Chair for the success of this important conference.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.