In December 2006, Hong Kong, China will be playing host to a most prestigious global information and communications technology (ICT) event, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Telecom World 2006, which is often referred to as the "Olympics" of the telecommunications industry. Hong Kong is most honoured to have won the bid to host this event, which is organized by a United Nations agency, the ITU. This will be the first time the event is held outside of ITU's home base in Geneva since its inauguration over 30 years age. The Central People's Government gives full support to the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for hosting the event. World 2006 will comprise 2 parts – the Exhibition with an exhibition space of 66000 sq m and the World Forum which will be held at the same time.

The preparation work of the event has been going well. The leasing of the exhibition space is highly satisfactory. As at present, more than 80% of the exhibition space has been leased out. Big names like major telecommunication companies in the Mainland, Huawei, ZTE, as well as Microsoft, Siemens, HP, CisCo and Intel etc have signed up. Those companies which did not participate in the Geneva World events such as Motorola, Lucent and Siemens have also decided to participate this time. So far, a dozen of countries including Canada, Japan, USA, UK, Russia, Korea, Spain, etc have confirmed to set up their national pavilion. As estimated by ITU, the World 2006 will attract about 900 exhibitors, 50000 business visitors, 1500 media representatives, 150 ministers and delegation leaders, as well as 2000 VIPs. The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been preparing well to make the event a success.