World Radiocommunication Conference 2000
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Opening Address by Mr Yoshio Utsumi
Secretary-General of the
International Telecommunication Union 
to the World Radiocommunication Conference
8 May 2000

Your Excellency Mr. Devlet Bahçeli, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey
Your Excellency Mr Enis Öksüz, Minister of Transport and Communications
Your Excellency, Mr Erkan Mumcu, Minister of Tourism
Your Excellency, Mr. Osman Durmuş, Minister of Health
The Governor of Istanbul, Mr. Erol Gakir
The Mayor of Istanbul, Mr. Ali Müfit Gürtuna
The Mayor of Sisli, Mr Mustafa Sarıgül
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am very pleased to be able to welcome you all here today to the opening of the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC 2000). It is of course the first WRC in the new millennium, indeed the first major ITU Conference of the millennium. Let me pay a special tribute to the generous and outstanding support that the ITU has received from the Turkish Government and its partners, at a time when two big natural disasters have presented enormous challenges to them. We can imagine how hard they must have worked to prepare for this conference which is the biggest event the ITU has ever experienced in its 135-year history. Istanbul, a city that has, for many centuries, been a symbol of bridging continents, different cultures and people just as telecommunications do today. We are very proud of being able to hold this Millennium event in this city.

WRC-2000 is the first ITU Conference to operate under the revised provisions of the Constitution, Convention and Rules of Procedure adopted at the Minneapolis Plenipotentiary Conference in 1998. It is thus, significantly, the first WRC to have the participation, as observers, of Sector Members in their own right. I personally welcome this change and, as you know, the ITU is working hard on considering further reforms of this kind to ensure that our organisation is relevant, and remains relevant in the face of the swiftly changing demands of today’s environment.

In this new age of rapid technological development, the WRC must be an excellent example of a mechanism for enabling the framework for the world-wide use of frequencies to adapt constantly to meet today’s requirements.

The issues you will be discussing during WRC-2000 reflect the urgency of the situation very clearly:

• additional spectrum for IMT-2000 systems;
• re-planning of the Broadcasting-Satellite Service for Regions 1 & 3;
• arrangements for proposed new satellite systems such as new non-GSO systems and Satellite Positioning Systems.

Many of these needs for spectrum and other changes to be considered are of vital importance to the Members of the Union.

I know that it will not be easy to reach agreement on those complicated issues for which strong vested interests and expectations are held. However, there have been extraordinarily extensive preparations made for this conference through Regional Groups such as APT, CITEL and CEPT. It would not be possible to get close to agreement at this WRC without these extensive regional preparations. And, of course, the ITU has played its part in these preparations through the ITU-R Study Groups, the recent Conference Preparatory Meeting (CPM), and the work conducted by the secretariat of the Union.

With all of this preparation, the final movement of the symphony is now before us and, I am sure, with your hard work we shall see the results in an agreed set of Final Acts for you to take home with you.

In order to be able to do that, however, efficient deliberations are absolutely necessary so as to be able to tackle the many difficult items. ITU‘s ways of conducting discussions must become more streamlined. And so I should like to propose some measures which in my own experience have led to increased efficiency, especially considering the constraints of the time available for the discussion of very important matters:

• firstly, each delegation's intervention should be limited to a maximum of five minutes;
• secondly, delegations should not ask for the floor repeatedly on the same issue;
• thirdly, chairpersons should not allow delegations to repeat the same kind of interventions when it is clear that the majority of the hall is moving in the same direction, and they should only allow delegations stating different opinions to take the floor;
• fourthly, conflicting issues should be resolved as much as possible between the main proponents in small ad hoc groups or in the corridors.

If you follow these suggestions and if you are well disciplined, I am sure enormous time will be saved. I believe that these measures will allow us to be able to enjoy some of the beauty of Istanbul, and if we do not have night sessions we may also be able to enjoy some of Istanbul’s famous night life.

Furthermore, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that the budgetary situation of the Union today is quite different from any previous one. The ITU has a very limited budget for its heavy workload. If you exceed the budget allocated to this Conference, you will have to cut down on certain other activities of the Union. And if your decisions in this Conference require more resources than are currently available, again you will have to reduce or eliminate other activities. We simply do not have the resources to satisfy demands that are made without taking into account the budgetary constraints. We may have had such resources in the past, but we certainly no longer have them today.

Four weeks seem like a long time at the beginning, but they will feel really short at the end. Let us have a meaningful meeting. I wish you a successful Conference.

Thank you.