The International Telecommunication Union Plenipotentiary Conference (ITUPP) was held on November 1st to elect the next session secretary-general. As the only candidate, Zhao Houlin, the incumbent secretary-general recommended by China won the position with 176 votes from 178 ballot papers, was re-elected to head the organization for the next four years.

Zhao said that information communication technologies and services developed rapidly in past 20 years, global number of telephone users are more than 7 billion now and internet users almost 4 billion. “However, we still in the face of the challenge to connect the unconnected. We should strengthen the cooperation between member states and partners to build ITU stronger, and provide highly effective service for global industries and societies.”

Chen Zhaoxiong, the vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology extended his congratulation representing China delegation, and said that China will sparing no effort to support ITU playing important role together with every member state. In the next four years, Chinese government will continue to donate 2 million U.S. dollars for bridging the digital gap among the developing countries.