His Excellency the President of the Republic of Lebanon, Michel Suleiman; represented by Minister of Telecommunications Gebran Bassil,

His Excellency the President of the Council of Ministers, Mr. Fouad Siniora; represented by Minister of Information Tarek Metri,

Ministers, Members of Parliament; speaker of the house

Ambassadors, Governors, Chairmen, Presidents, and Directors of national telecommunications regulatory authorities, dear fellow regulators;

Dear guests;

Welcome to Lebanon, the host of the Global Symposium for Regulators and the Global Industry Leaders’ Forum for 2009.

I owe a warm thank you to all those who have made this event possible:

• To His Excellency, President Michel Suleiman, for agreeing to give his high patronage for this international event which puts Lebanon back at the center stage of telecommunications;

• To His Excellency Mr. Nabih Berri, Speaker of the House, for his support in hosting this crucial event in Lebanon;

• To His Excellency Fouad Siniora, President of the Council of Ministers, for his unwavering support to the TRA and the GILF/GSR; and

• To H.E Minister Gebran Bassil, for his commitment to have this conference in Beirut.

Thanks must go to our sponsors, whose generosity and their unwavering commitment to Lebanon have made this event possible.

Thanks to the International Telecommunications Union, an institution that has been a role model for other international organizations, a model for a fruitful and mutually beneficial public-private partnership; and a model for intelligent adaptation when, a few years ago, it accommodated the emergence of independent telecommunications regulatory authorities as key partners in shaping the future of telecommunications.

ITU is much more than the sum of its parts – Governments, Regulators, private sector members, and international civil servants. This is due to the wise and visionary leadership of Dr. Hamadoun Toure, ITU’s secretary general, a man who has in his heart a passion for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and for ITU’s mission of “connecting the world.”

Thanks also go to the very able and talented Sami al Bashir, Director of the Bureau of Development of Telecommunications (BDT), whose love and commitment to Lebanon are unequalled and whose trust in the TRA has not wavered throughout this long, all-consuming, yet very rewarding march to the 9th Global Symposium for Regulators.

It is also gratifying to recognize the efforts of all my colleagues at TRA for the preparation of this event. Today, thanks to the incredibly talented and professional team I have the pleasure of working with, we are hosting this event and we are able to share with you some of the magic of Lebanon.

Finally, I wish to thank each and every one of you for being here with us today.

We have a rich program for you, one that will explore the challenges that the telecommunication industry faces today and will most likely face in the coming years. The 2nd Global Industry Leaders’ Forum and the 9th Global Symposium for Regulators are an opportunity for us to work closely together and learn from one another, to devise innovative solutions and create new opportunities for the growth and spread of ICT.

In the spirit of the Global Symposium for Regulators and the Global Industry Leaders’ Forum, I wish to underscore the common challenges that confront the telecommunications community and the synergies that exist between regulatory authorities and the private sector members of ITU. I cannot stress enough the importance of the private sector as a partner in constantly improving and fine-tuning ICT regulations through an open and transparent process of public consultations. Since the appointment of the TRA board and the beginning of operations in April 2007, in 30 months, the TRA has launched 22 public consultations on draft regulations, decisions, or strategy papers. This amounts to almost 5 and ½ weeks for each consultation, which is less than the 6-week which is the average time we give for the responses to these regulations. This has been a very hectic process on the TRA and the industry, but the effort have paid off and the regulations we have issued are so much better because of this.

Our deliberations as regulators can only be enriched by the active participation of the private sector. Many private sector members present here today have made it known that they wish to attend, either as observers or as full participants, the three days of GSR. This is a matter which needs to be discussed further between ITU and the regulators.

In its efforts to liberalize telecommunications, the TRA in Lebanon has been engaged, the last two years, in creating the conditions for Lebanon to leap-frog and reclaim a leading position in telecommunications. Despite the political conditions prevailing in the country, the TRA has made significant progress in a very short time span. It is now ready to move ahead and liberalize mobile, international, and the bottlenecks to broadband telecommunication services (namely, the core, metro and international networks) in 2010.

The TRA has been ready since November 2007 to launch the mobile auction to license and privatize the two state-owned networks and it will do so as soon as the political decision is taken by the Council of Ministers. What is needed, following the appointment of a new government, is for the Minister to propose and the Council of Ministers to adopt a clear policy regarding the allocation of shares between the strategic investor and the Lebanese public, revenue-sharing, the timing of privatization and other related issues. Once this policy is clarified, TRA and the Higher Council for Privatization will need only a few weeks to update the virtual data room and re-launch the process. These licenses will be, as TRA has made clear in the past, licenses for 2G and mobile broadband. Let me be very clear on this: the TRA is committed to the licensing and privatization of mobile in a manner that unequivocally establishes the fundamental structure of a competitive market and which allows the expected new competitor, Liban Telecom, to compete on a level playing field. To this end, TRA has planned to assign the spectrum necessary for a third operator and has defined the regulatory framework that favors competition, including the Significant Market Power regulation, the National Numbering Plan and number portability, and infrastructure-sharing.

The priority is also to liberalize broadband and international services in 2010. We already have a number of competing broadband service providers, but there are serious bottlenecks to competition. TRA plans to issue two new national broadband and carrier licenses (NBCL) licenses and has adopted an open licensing regime for access licenses. The TRA recognizes that the best regulations –including infrastructure-sharing, spectrum management, etc - alone are not enough and that the success of broadband liberalization depends, in large part, on Government of Lebanon policy commitments 1) to stimulate public demand for broadband through e-education, e-health and e-government; 2) to remove any limitations on the reasonable use of technology, such as supporting the authorization of mobility for broadband service providers; and 3) the issuance of secondary legislation (decrees) related to Rights-of-Way and access to public properties and spectrum Right-to-Use fees. The TRA has drafted the required decrees and concluded the preparations needed to launch the broadband auction of the NBCLs and will issue long-term licenses to the existing service providers as soon as the Licensing Regulation has been reviewed by the Council of State. With this strategy, we are confident will be laying the foundations for a vibrant and competitive broadband telecommunications industry for years to come and we will provide Lebanon with infrastructure-based competition.

Dear friends,

Regulation is based on universal values of justice and fairness, equal treatment and non-discrimination, on transparency. These values have been drafted into law in many countries. But regulation is also based on concepts of universal service and right-to-access to telecommunications services. These concepts change over time and are shaped, by technology, by politics but also by crises. Today, as policy-makers, regulators and the private sector gather in Beirut, it is important that we consider not only the challenge posed by the world financial and economic crises but also the opportunity and the promise of better regulation.

I am confident that this gathering marks the beginning of a renaissance in telecommunications in Lebanon, and that, from now on, our country will not miss out on opportunities for social development and economic prosperity and will achieve, in record time, a leading position in telecommunications worthy of Lebanon and the aspirations of the Lebanese.