Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, Director-General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, TRA, delivered the opening speech at the ITU Telecom World 2016 Gallery and Forum held this week in Bangkok. The UAE is the official sponsor of the Leadership Summit, the main event on the conference agenda, with more than 1,000 participants from the ICT sector worldwide.

Mr. Al Mansoori highlighted the importance of international cooperation in achieving the ITU's goals to accommodate digital developments and techniques to achieve development for all the peoples of the world, saying, "In this era, no country can ignore the value of collaboration in its development and strategic plans, where technology is evolving rapidly. There is a need to develop international standards, policies and systems to align plans with those updates. For instance, the world's largest Taxi Company owns no vehicles, and the most valuable retailer store has no store, the world’s largest accommodation provider owns no real estate. This means to change the old-fashioned concepts and beliefs and the whole world must cooperate in order to keep up with those changes."

"Our active presence within the ITU reflects our interest in pushing forward the value of international cooperation for the benefit of humanity and I am pleased to tell you that we in the UAE are striving to take our ICT infrastructure up to the best of the world standards in order to serve our people and contribute to their happiness," Al-Mansoori added The session focused on reviewing successful experiences and practical examples, in addition to best practices that allow collaboration between stakeholders from public and private sectors, including service providers, solution providers, government entities and small businesses, down to the end user. The session also identified business modules, policies, regulatory approaches and the partnerships needed for the global ICT sector to move forward in achieving development and prosperity for mankind. It identified the lessons learned from more than one perspective depending on emerging and developing markets, and the ways of adopting the best procedures or adapting to them to suit the current situation of the sector, and the challenges and gaps that need to be avoided.