China plays an active role in the information and communication Technologies (ICT) sector, where its experience should be shared, the secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union (UIT), Hamadoun Toure, told Xinhua in an interview on Monday.

The UIT chief made these remarks on the sidelines of the 14th summit of the African Union (AU), which is being held from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with a theme of "ICT in Africa : Challenges and Opportunities for Development."

"China has been a very important partner in ICT sector and there are good lessons that we can learn from the Chinese experience," Toure noted.

He affirmed that there are "three big companies including Huawei, ZTE and ChinaMobile which have shown good examples not only to the African continent, but to the entire world in the ICT matters."

He went ahead to express his satisfaction with the fact that China is willing to cooperate with developing countries in the domain.

Regarding the ICT development in Africa, the UIT head said it was satisfactory since the rate of mobile telephone penetration in Africa was now standing at 40 percent, and this, he noted, was the highest growth in the world.

"There are still challenges to overcome in the area of Internet usage," he said, but he was quick to add that these are challenges which should be turned into opportunities.

He congratulated African countries for having made commitments on the development of ICT, making reference to the theme of this summit, which is devoted to discussions on the issue by heads of state and governments and representatives of AU member countries.

Toure said the new services created by the ICT could come to the aid of other sectors like education, commerce, health and governance through the digital technology, which will speed up the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

He was optimistic that the summit will end up with positive results.

UIT is a UN institution specialized in the information and communication technologies. Being a center for global convergence where public and private sectors meet, UIT helps the world to communicate in three main areas: radio communication, normalization and development.

UIT, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, has 191 member states with more than 700 associations in the industry.
From www.xinhuanet.com

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