Bangladesh keeps up ITU membership

Bangladesh has kept its executive membership of International Telecommunications Union in the elections held in Bushan, South Korea on Monday.
Bangladesh has secured a total of 115 votes in the poll, State Minister for ICT Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak told.
The numbers of ITU member states are 193 and of them 167 voted for electing 48-member council for next four years.
Bangladesh, which won its executive membership to the 46-member ITU Executive Council in 2010 for a four-year term, is currently one of 13 members representing the ITU’s Executive Council for Asia and Australia regions.
Asia and Australia regions have a total of 13 membership posts sanctioned for representing in the ITU Executive Council. A total of 18 countries are contesting against 13 membership posts this year election.
India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand, China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran, Philippines, United Arab Emirate, Kuwait, Bahrain and Lebanon are 17 other countries contesting for the seats.
Two-time Deputy Secretary General Houlin Zhao of China has been elected the next ITU Secretary General. He will take office on 1 January 2015 for a term of four years.
Zhao won the position with polling 152 votes among 156 cast in the election. Malcolm Johnson of the United Kingdom has been elected Deputy Secretary-General of ITU with bagging 104 votes.
A delegation comprising more than 50 people from government and private sectors have gone to the South Korean city ahead of the election. State Minister for ICT Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak is leading the delegation.
Among them are all the members of the parliamentary standing committee on telecommunication, secretary of telecommunication division, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission chairman and vice chairman, sources said.