It is indeed an honor and a pleasure for me to have the opportunity to say a few words here at the Annual General Meeting of PHS MoU Group as a representative of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Japan. Firstly, I would like to congratulate the PHS MoU Group for the excellent arrangements made for this 3rd General Meeting and to thank the Telecommunications Association of Thailand and the Post and Telegraph Department of Thailand for supporting this Meeting and the 2nd PHS Symposium. As you may be aware, a total of 14 countries including Japan have decided to introduce the PHS so far. In addition, several European countries such as Germany, France, England and Finland are at present evaluating the PHS.
Thailand is the 2nd country to introduce a public PHS service following Japan and it is entirely fitting that this General Meeting is held here in Bangkok. In Japan, the PHS service was introduced two years ago. Since then, PHS subscribers have been increasing by 300 to 400 thousand a month, and the number of such subscribers has now reached about 7 million. The introduction of PHS has in turn stimulated the cellular phone market. And the cellular phone subscribers have been doubling every year since the PHS services started. I hope that the introduction of PHS will promote competition and vitalization in the telecommunication field. I confidently expect to see tremendous growth in telecommunications in Thailand as well.
I am very proud the PHS technology developed in Japan has been contributing to the development and the growth of the telecommunications around the world. I want to emphasize that the role PHS MoU Group will play in the future will be much more important. It is to be hoped that the PHS MoU Group will become more active and work more quickly than ever. Responding to diversify the needs for the PHS in the world, we, MPT Japan, would like to continue to support the activities of the PHS MoU Group . In closing, I wish every success to the PHS MoU Group and luck forward to expansion of the PHS.