"Communications is a key enabling infrastructure on which industrial, commercial and social life depends. The development of regional and global markets has created an urgent need for modern communications networks. In developing countries, such as the Central Asian Republics, Communications infrastructures are poor and are in urgent need of products, services and expertise to bring them up to international standards. It is widely accepted that the communications networks of the former soviet union currently fail to meet the needs of their economies. As the liberalisation of these economies gathers pace the need to improve their networks becomes increasingly important. Modern market economies require an advanced communications network, it is not a luxury, it is a necessity. It is against this background that KITEL '99, the 6th Kazakstan International Communications Exhibition and Conference for Central Asia, takes place 1-4 June 1999 at the Atakent International Exhibition Centre, Almaty, Kazakstan."