The Leadership Summit and Government Mobile Forum held on February 16th brought together Ministers and Government representatives to discuss the "Impact of the Economic Crisis on the Telecoms Sector". The key themes and messages to emerge were as follows:

• The mobile industry, although feeling the impact of the economic crisis, remains healthy. Its demand is not credit driven, but an essential basic consumer need to ensure effective communication
• The mobile industry is in a unique position to contribute to the global recovery from the crisis. Many business models across industries are broken. Mobile can help re-design their cost structures and provide innovative and efficient ways of working (eg. health, power grids, transportation and logistics)
• The mobile industry is able to continue to deliver this innovation and investment through the crisis, without government funding (unlike other industries)
• However, it requires governments to create a supportive environment for these market-led initiatives, through stable and robust regulatory frameworks and sufficient release of spectrum to the sector