The hosting of the ITU Telecom World 2006, the biggest of its kind since its inception in 1971, will enhance Hong Kong's position as a global telecommunications platform, allow industry to showcase their state-of-the-art products and demonstrate Hong Kong's capability to organize large-scale international events, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology Joseph Wong said yesterday.

Dubbed as the Olympics Games of the telecommunications industry, this is the first time the exposition is being held outside Geneva. In an interview with the media, Wong said: "For this year's event, the ITU has invited Mr. Wu Bangguo, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, to be the officiating guest. It's been the ITU tradition to let a state leader of the host city to officiate at the exposition."

He added this year's event would not be like ordinary large-scale commercial exhibitions.

"The high valued-added telecommunications industry is the major economic growth engine in the 21st century for every country. With telecommunications ministers and officials from all around the world gathering in Hong Kong, we will be able to conduct bilateral or multilateral talks and exchange our experience with other countries," he said.

"For example, we can enter closer cooperation on practical issues such as combating spam mails and the development of e-government services," he added.

He further pointed out that the 2006 expo is rather unique from the previous events. Since the 2006 expo is being held on the Chinese soil for the first time, it has attracted more than 100 Chinese enterprises as opposed to less than 10 enterprises for the 2003 expo. They include: China Telecom, China Netcom, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Satcom.

A total of 71 local Hong Kong exhibitors, including both big names and small & medium enterprises, will take part besides some 630 multinational corporations. The CEOs of some top companies including Cisco, Motorola, Intel and Hewlett-Packard will attend the Forum, which carries the theme "Living the Digital World", to be held during the exhibition.

"As a new feat, we will arrange a trip to Shenzhen to enable foreign exhibitors to personally see the biggest and fastest-growing telecommunications market in the world.

"In the past, the CEOs of the foreign companies might have only come to Hong Kong in a rush but they now can stay longer and see more about the Hong Kong's business environment. This is a very good chance for local companies to explore business opportunities and for this reason, I have asked our investment promotion officials to keep a close watch on them," he said.