More than 800 air traffic controllers and aviation experts from almost 80 countries worldwide gathering Monday to discuss ways for providing more sophisticated, efficient and well-coordinated air traffic control (ATC) services.

Hong Kong Secretary for Economic Development and Labor Stephen Ip said at the opening of the annual conference of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Associations (IFATCA) Monday that "looking ahead, as more airports open in different parts of the world, and with airlines flying to more destinations to meet the increasing demands of the traveling public, I envisage air traffic worldwide will grow in leaps and bounds."

He said as air travel continues to grow, airspace and airport congestion problems are becoming more acute. All these call for worldwide.

He added that answers to these challenges lie in enhancing the reliability of ATC hardware and software, harmonizing ATC rules and protocols, maintaining a vigilant oversight of ATC standards, and investing in human resources to ensure that ATC professionals are well trained to meet the highest standards.

This is the second time that the IFATCA annual conference and Technical Exhibition have been held in Asia in 43 years. It is also one of the IFATCA annual conference with the biggest attendance on record.

He said "as one of the busiest aviation hubs in the world, the Hong Kong International Airport now handles close to 200,000 aircraft movements annually and processes over 34 million passengers and 2.6 million tons of cargo each year.

He said the control tower steers some 90,000 aircraft overflying Hong Kong each year, through our sophisticated and professional air traffic control (ATC) services.

The latest forecasts by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) indicated that world airline passenger traffic is expected to rebound at 4.4 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively, in 2004 and 2005.

The theme of this year's conference is "Our Future". Aspects concerning aviation safety in general and the ATC profession in particular will be discussed during the five-day event at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.

IFATCA is an independent non-government, non-political, professional organization representing over 40,000 air traffic controllers in more than 120 countries. The mission of the federation is to protect and safeguard the interests of the ATC profession.

(Xinhua News Agency March 23, 2004)