Welcome speech on behalf of the Presidental Office of Russian Federation
Dear Forum participants!
We are pleased to welcome Forum delegates and guests of the beautiful city of Vladivostok. We are happy that the international community has selected this country as the host of the regional Internet Governance Forum of Asia Pacific which is a pivot of the world.
Today, many reckon that it is Asia Pacific which is going to become home to the next billion of users to join a burgeoning global netizenry. The region is already emerging as a major driver the advancement of the new global e-economy. That is why the challenge we are facing lies in the development of internet technologies and the imperative to ensure conceptual breakthroughs in the Internet Governance area.
The Forum participants are going to engage in a serious discussion on choosing the way for promoting a multi-party coordination of Internet’s development, on business, the technical community, and internet users’ roles in the process, and on the governments and the international community’s mandate in that regard. To set the stage for the discussion let me note that from our perspective retaining openness, freedom of choice and competition on the Internet on the national, regional, and global levels is of paramount importance.
In a similar vein it is true in the context of the problem of the impact of state on the Internet. Monopoly of a single state or a group of states over the shaping and implementation of the Internet Governance agenda is not conducive to a meaningful dialogue between all the key interested parties acting on an equal footing; rather, it should be a collaborative effort by the whole international community under the auspices of the United Nations.
Such a collaborative framework should also aim at the preclusion of a fragmentation of the Internet as a unique global resource that provides connectivity between dozens of thousands of networks and which is based upon a single system of domain names, key infrastructure components, and universal data transfer protocols.
The year of 2019 marks a milestone for the RuNet as one of the largest national segments of the global Internet. I am confident that the largest country in the world by area finds the roots of a successful 25 year-long development of the Internet in industry’s openness, genuinely competitive environment, and proactive cooperation between key stakeholders operating on an equal footing.
We would like to thank the Forum organizers and remain hopeful that in the course of the debate, together, we will take an important step towards a better understanding of the way we should pursue our goals.
We wish you further success in your work for the benefit of Asia Pacific and the Internet.