Statement by the Press Secretary/Director-General for Press and Public Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the Result of the Election of the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

October 2, 2002

1. The Government of Japan welcomes the reelection of Mr. Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary- General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), as the result of the election held on October 1 in Marrakesh, Morocco.
   
   
2. Mr. Utsumi was first elected as Secretary-General at the Plenipotentiary Conference of the Union held in Minneapolis, U.S.A., in 1998. Since assuming his post in February 1999, Mr. Utsumi has been proactively tackling ITU reform to cope with the rapidly changing international environment surrounding information and communication in recent years. The Government of Japan thinks that Mr. Utsumi was reelected as Secretary-General because the countries concerned highly evaluated his past achievements.
   
   
3. The Government of Japan expects that Mr. Utsumi will keep exercizing his leadership in important projects such as ITU's structural reform and the holdings of the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and 2005. Japan, in cooperation with other countries concerned, will assist ITU so that the organization will be able to play a greater role in developing global information and communication.

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