Trade: Telecom pact to enter into force 5 February

Geneva, 26 Jan (TWN) -- The fourth protocol to the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services, incorporating the accord on basic telecommunications, will now enter into force on 5 February 1998.

This was agreed upon Monday at a meeting at the WTO of the countries who have accepted the agreement.

The United States, which has been temporising at earlier meetings of the ratifying countries, said today that it would agree to the entry into force of the accord as soon as possible.

Japan then proposed the 5 February date.

It was also decided that countries that have not yet accepted the protocol will have time till 31 July to do so.

The agreement concluded on 15 February last year had as an entry condition acceptance by all the 69 countries (including the EC's 15), and the target date was set for January.

However, not all the countries had done so, and initially the US had been resistant to allow the agreement to enter into force without acceptances from all.

The countries that concluded the negotiations and filed schedules, but have not so far ratified or accepted it are: Bolivia, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Ghana, the Philippines, Romania, Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Dominica, Guatemala, Papua New Guinea and Poland.

The agreement being an MFN based WTO/GATS accord, its benefits will automatically be extended by the members, party to it, to the WTO membership as a whole.

While the agreement formally enters into force on 5 February, several of the countries have set out in their schedules for a phasing-in of their market access liberalisation. Their actual implementation would thus depend on the dates specified in the schedule.

According to a WTO press release, some 25 of the 61 governments who have made offers on voice telephone services, have entries in their schedules for a phasing-in.

Forty-seven schedules of the 51 governments cover competitive supply (by two or more suppliers) of voice telephone services. Most of them permit public voice services in at least one market segment, either immediately or phased-in. Forty-one schedules of 55 governments have commitments on
local service, 37 schedules of 51 governments on domestic long-distance, and 42 schedules of 56 governments on international service.

Resale of public voice telephone is included in 28 schedules of 42 governments.

In other services, 40 schedules of 63 governments include commitments on data transmission services; 46 schedules of 60 governments grant access for cellular/mobile telephone markets; 41 schedules of 55 governments commit to competition in leased circuit services; 45 schedules of 59 governments include commitments on other types of mobile services, such as PCs, mobile data or paging.

On satellite-related communications, 37 schedules of 51 governments commit some or all types of mobile satellite services or transport capacity and 36 schedules of 50 governments commit on fixed satellite services or transport capacity.

Eight governments have scheduled some commitments on value-added telecommunications services - e.g. email, on-line-data processing or data base retrieval.

The 72 WTO member countries who have agreed to be parties to the accord, according to the WTO account for nearly 93% of the total domestic and international revenue of $600 billion annually.

However, this $600 billion figure should not be equated with the value of the liberalised market.