PRESS/67
17February 1997
RUGGIERO CONGRATULATES GOVERNMENTS
ONLANDMARK TELECOMMUNICATIONS
AGREEMENT
"This dealgoeswellbeyond trade andeconomics"
MrRenato Ruggiero, Director-General oftheWTO, congratulated member governments for
theirdetermination andforesight inbringing thenegotiations onbasic telecommunications services
toasuccessful conclusion.
Sixty-nine governments made multilateral commitments inamarket thatisworth wellover
halfatrillion dollars peryear,andthesecountries account formorethan90percentoftelecoms revenue
worldwide.
"Iwant tocongratulate governments fortheirdetermination andforesight inbringing this
negotiation toasuccessful conclusion. Notallthedecisions havebeeneasy. Butintheend,member
governments haveputtheirfaithinthemultilateral process oftheWTO, andtheWTO hasdelivered.
"This agreement promotes liberalization, anditenhances certainty, security andpredictability
through aclearsetofrules. Thisisparticularly valuable atatimewhen rapid growth andtechnological
development arechanging thefaceofthetelecoms industry.
"Thetelecoms dealwillcontribute tolower costsforconsumers, andthepricereductions will
bevery significant. This isgood news forfirms, which intheaggregate spend more on
telecommunications services thantheydoonoil.Itisalsogoodnewsforfamilies thatintoday'sworld
aresooften separated byphysical distance.
"Itisdifficult tobeveryprecise inthesematters, buttelecoms liberalization could mean global
income gains ofsome onetrillion dollars overthenextdecade orso.Thatrepresents around 4per
centofworld GDP attoday'sprices.
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"Lots ofother benefits flowfromgreater competition intelecoms markets: people andnations
cancommunicate more easily andunderstand oneanother better; consumers enjoy more choice and
better quality; modernization andinvestment areenhanced worldwide; andmore jobsarecreated.
"Itisinrecognition ofthese benefits thatsomany governments havejoined together tomake
thisnegotiation asuccess. Wehaveseenverydifferent countries, atverydifferent levels ofdevelopment
engaged inthisendeavour, sitting onthesame sideofthetableandpursuing thesame objectives.
"Perhaps mostimportantly ofallfrom alonger-term perspective, thisdealgoeswellbeyond
trade andeconomics. Itmakes access toknowledge easier. Itgives nations large andsmall, richand
poor, better opportunities toprepare forthechallenges ofthetwenty-first century. Information and
knowledge, afterall,aretherawmaterial ofgrowth anddevelopment inourglobalized world."
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THE WTO AGREEMENT ONBASIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES
Some salient features
On15February 1997, 55schedules1ofcommitments representing 69WTO member governments had
beenagreed to.These schedules areannexed totheFourth Protocol totheGeneral Agreement on
Trade inServices which willremain openforacceptance until30November 1997. Thecommitments
willenter intoforce on1January 1998.
Attheoutset ofthenegotiations, governments agreed tosetaside national differences onhowbasic
telecommunications might bedefined domestically andtonegotiate onalltelecommunications services
bothpublic andprivate thatinvolve end-to-end transmission ofcustomer supplied information (e.g.
simplytherelayofvoiceordatafromsendertoreceiver.Theyalsoagreedthatbasictelecommunications
services provided overnetwork infrastructure, aswellasthose provided through resale (over private
leased circuits), would bothfallwithin thescope ofcommitments. Asaresult, market access
commitments willcover notonlycross-border supply oftelecommunications butalsoservices provided
through theestablishment offoreign firms, orcommercial presence, including theability toownand
operate independent telecom network infrastructure. Examples oftheservices covered bythisagreement
include voice telephony, datatransmission, telex, telegraph, facsimile, private leased circuit services
(i.e.thesaleorleaseoftransmission capacity), fixedandmobile satellite systems andservices, cellular
telephony, mobile dataservices, paging, andpersonal communications systems.
Value-added services (ortelecommunications forwhich suppliers "add value" tothecustomer 's
information byenhancing itsform orcontent orbyproviding foritsstorage andretrieval) werenot
formally partofthesenegotiations. Examples include on-line dataprocessing, on-line databasestorage
andretrieval, electronic datainterchange, e-mail orvoice mail. Value-added services arealready
included in44schedules (representing 55governments) thatareinforce asaresult oftheUruguay
Round.
Theresults ofthesenegotiations aretobeextended toallWTO members onanon-discriminatory basis
through the"most-favoured-nation" (m.f.n.) principle. However, thelegalbasisforthesenegotiations
made itpossible foreachgovernment todecide, attheendofthenegotiations, whether ornottofile
anm.f.n. exemption onameasure affecting trade inbasic telecommunications services. Attheend
ofthenegotiations on15February 1997, 9governments2filedlistsofm.f.n. exemptions.
1Antigua &Barbuda, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam,
Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Côted'Ivoire, Czech Republic, Dominica, Dominican Republic,
Ecuador, ElSalvador, EC&itsmember states, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary,
Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, New
Zealand,Norway,Pakistan,PapuaNewGuinea,Peru,Philippines,Poland,Romania,Senegal,Singapore,
SriLanka, Switzerland, Slovak Republic, South Africa, Thailand, Trinidad &Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey,
United States andVenezuela.
2Antigua &Barbuda, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Pakistan, SriLanka, Turkey, andUnited
States.
END