The Doha Round

1
The Doha Round Telecom in GATSState of Play

• APT-infoDev
• Sub-regional Seminar
• Trade in Telecom
• Trade in Services Division
• WTO, Geneva
• http//www.wto.org

2
The Doha Trade Negotiations

• Attitude is positive
• Emerging economies more pro-active than in the
  past
• National ICT priorities driving telecom
• Many emerging economies now have ICT telecom
  export interests

• 12 telecom negotiating proposals submitted and
  discussed
• Requests circulated
• Bilateral request-offer talks began
• Offers started coming in March 03
• Many sector experts participate in bilaterals
  friends groups

3
Doha Round Telecom remains a priority

• Telecom negotiations are not done
• Willingness to accomplish more in this Round
• E-business - IT as catalyst
• Modernization of telecoms seen as essential
• Reducing cost of telecoms key to attracting
  investment in IT industries
• Networks as economic infrastructure
• Sparks interest in negotiations for both local
  foreign investors in all segments of the economy

4
Doha Round TelecomNegotiating Proposals

• 12 submissions from 26 Members
• Australia Canada
• Chile Colombia
• Cuba Japan
• European Korea
• Communities Mexico
• Norway United States
• Switzerland

5
The common elements

• New commitments
• Better commitments
• Reduce limits on foreign equity number of
  suppliers
• Expand coverage -- market segments, means of
  supply (resale vs. facilities), modes of supply
  (cross border)
• Commit on or move forward phase-in dates
• More on less committed services (value added,
  transport capacity, satellite services)
• More Reference Paper commitments

6
more work on
regulatory issues?

• The Reference Paper continues to be a valuable
  tool to guide liberalisation (Chile) All that
  commit should adopt it (Mexico)
• Reduce regulatory requirements to minimum
  necessary to ensure quality, universal service,
  and address scarce resources (EU)
• More work on licensing requirements and technical
  standards (Australia) Address unreasonably high
  licensing charges (Japan)
• Clarify allocation of scarce resources as
  regards spectrum and standards (Australia)
  Encourage competition enhancing means to allocate
  frequencies (Switzerland)
• Develop criteria on independence of regulators
  (Australia)

7
Telecom Offers Tabled

• 41 offers (55 governments)
• New commitments
• on basic telecoms
• on value-added services
• on the Reference Paper
• Improved telecom commitments indicated in 12
  offers

8
Basic Telecom Progress since 1997

• Today
• 91 governments
• 6 more Members 16 acceding countries
  committed
• 3 protocol schedules improved
• Phase-ins already in place in at least a dozen
  countries
• More underway .

• 1997 The 4th Protocol
• 69 governments
• 2 still to ratify
• 9 MFN exemptions

9
By service sector and staging of reforms

(by number of governments
79
76
74
73
72
69
10
BT Commitments EmergingEconomies ( emerging
economies with commitments)
90
88
85
82
79
72
54
11

• The Reference Paper

Telecom Regulatory Principles --
Today, 77 governments have adopted in full
7 in part

• Competition - avoid abuse of dominance
• Interconnection - guarantee fairness
• Regulator - independent of operators
• Universal service - competition friendly
• Finite resources - administer fairly (e.g.
  spectrum, numbering, rights of way)
• Licensing - added transparency

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Terms of Access No single approach for
all

(In percent of country
grouping) Limits on Number of Suppliers
Limits on Foreign Equity Emerging
economies Industrialized Economies
13
How are the players faring?Competition in
International Traffic
120
New carrier in
(billions of minutes)
competitive market
100
Incumbent carrier in
competitive market
80
Monopoly
60
40
20
0
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
Source TeleGeography, 2001.
14
Emerging Economy Operators?
15
Market Access by and for Developing Countries
example
France Telecom Motorola invest in Egyptian
mobile operator Orascom
Telecel wins licenses and installs cellular
networks all across Africa
Orascom buys 80 of South African Telecel
International
Orascom plans further expansion in Middle East
? Future
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Reform goes global

• Vast majority of world permits competition
• Industrialized markets allow voice resale and
  capacity wholesale others to follow
• VOIP, hubbing become accepted
• By-pass not only legitimate but desired, to
  obtain full benefits of multi-operator environment

85
Competition among networks (by revenue share)
17
BT CommitmentsAsia-Pacific emerging economies
(Total 16) (by number of governments)
14 of 16
13
13
12
10
8
6
18
Asia-Pacific Economies