February 21, 2012

The 9th AREGNET Plenary meeting hosted by the TRA kicked off earlier today at Gefinor Rotana Hotel in Beirut in the presence of National Regulatory Authorities heads and officials from 21 Arab countries and the TRA Board. This is the second meeting taking place in Beirut since the TRA, represented by its Acting Chairman and CEO, Dr. Imad Hoballah, assumed the Chairmanship of the AREGNET in July 2011.

The opening ceremony included speeches by the AREGNET Chairman, Dr. Imad Hoballah, and the AREGNET Permanent Secretary General, Dr. Mhamed Toufik Bessaii.

Dr. Imad Hoballah welcomed the attendees and reiterated the TRA commitment through close coordination with Network members. Dr. Hoballah detailed the TRA efforts deployed to contribute in the definition of the Network’s strategic goals that will allow the telecommunications sector advancement in the Arab countries and pointed out the TRA achievements in proposing three AREGNET projects evolving around cloud computing, children online protection and telecommunications market assessment. He also mentioned that the TRA was actively involved in various major projects within the Network such as for example the revamping of the AREGNET website and the participation in the roundtable about the AREGNET representation in the Arab telecommunications Ministers meeting. As for the AREGNET development, Dr. Hoballah stressed on the importance of establishing permanent specialized committees to develop and apply the strategic goals of the Network as well as a permanent committee that would assist the Permanent Secretary General and the Chairman in various network coordination and administrative affairs. He closed his speech by thanking the Permanent Secretary General and all the members for their constant efforts to develop the AREGNET.

The opening ceremony was also marked by a speech by Dr. Mhamed Toufik Bessaii who firstly thanked the TRA for hosting this meeting and the members who have actively participated in preparing their recommendations for the AREGNET strategic plan. He detailed the various recommendations presented by the AREGNET members in regard of the development of the strategic plan and especially those of KSA, Oman and UAE. He also presented the meeting agenda and closed his speech by wishing a successful session that would result in the ratification of the strategic plan, which is crucial to move forward in the development of telecommunications in the Arab region and promote international and regional cooperation in the different industry fields.

This meeting was mostly dedicated to discuss the AREGNET strategic goals and plans for the upcoming few years, and review the progress of AREGNET projects. This meeting also included an awareness session about the Arab Connect Summit where representatives from the Lebanese TRA, the ITU Arab regional office and al Iktissad wa al Aamal shared their views with the participants. Connect Arab Summit is part of ITU's “Connect the World” series, which is an ambitious initiative aimed at connecting the “unconnected” by the year 2015 and, is jointly organized by ITU and the Arab League and hosted by ICT Qatar in March 2012.

The 9th AREGNET plenary meeting will be followed tomorrow by a workshop about Quality of Service presented by ITU expert Joachim Pomy.

To view Dr. Hoballah's speech, click here
To view Dr. Bessaii's speech, click here