Iranian Minister of Post, Telegraph and Telephone Mohammad Reza Aref said on Tuesday that despite great progress in the field of communications technology, there is wide gap in the world in terms of access to telecom networks.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the 8th General Assembly Conference and 23rd meeting of Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT), Aref said the current gap at the international level caused the

United Nations administrative committee to declare emergence of a new kind of poverty called information poverty in 1997.

He said that in the beginning of 1998, 15 percent of the world population had 65 percent of telephone lines and 84 percent of mobile telephone subscribers, 91 percent of fax users and 97 percent of internet subscribers were from the developed countries, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

The Iranian minister called on the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union and the Bangkok-based APT to work to narrow the gap between the rich and poor nations in terms of communication technological know-how.

The conference attended by 34 countries and 40 private companies will run for six days until December 6. (Xinhua)