The ITU Radiocommunication Assembly considering a) that the reception quality of AM broadcasting in the LF, MF and HF bands (150 kHz to 26 MHz) suffers from: limited AF bandwidth, partly due to planning constraints; the disturbing effects of sky-wave propagation; man-made noise; b) that AM reception quality is relatively poor compared with FM broadcast or CD quality; c) that new digital techniques have enabled significant improvements in reception quality to be obtained in other broadcasting bands; d) that the introduction of digital modulation systems in the broadcasting bands below 30 MHz has been shown to be feasible by using low bit-rate coding; e) that Resolution 517 (Rev.WRC-97) invites the ITU-R to continue its studies on digital techniques in HF broadcasting as a matter of urgency.