WASHINGTON-The Clinton administration accused Asia of thwarting progress on reaching a global telecom free trade pact early next year.
“The WTO (World Trade Organization) telecom services negotiations cannot succeed without market-opening commitments from the high-growth countries of Asia,” said Jeffrey Lang, deputy U.S. trade representative, following recent trips to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.
“The telecom services offers made so far by two members in Eastern Europe and Latin America are superior to the offers that have been made by WTO members in Asia. Those other offers-for example, by Argentina, Hungary, Brazil and others in those regions-provide market access across all basic telecom services sectors at an early date, without significant limits on foreign investment,” Lang added. “Moreover, 31 countries have adopted a common set of enforceable regulatory commitments that will be crucial to assure real market access.”
Telecom talks broke down last spring amid a flurry of finger pointing and the negotiating deadline was extended until Feb. 15. In recent months, the United States has been engaged in bilateral, multilateral and regional telecom trade talks.
In his visit to the four Asian nations, Lang briefed trade and telecom ministers on trade talks that took place last month in Seattle. Quadrilateral trade ministers from the United States, the European Union, Japan and Canada made progress on two fronts at that meeting, according to Lang.
Lang said acting USTR head Charlene Barshefsky and Sir Leon Brittan of the European Union agreed to improve offers in WTO negotiations on basic telecommunications services prior to the Singapore Ministerial Conference, Dec. 9-13.
Japan and Canada also signaled their intention to better their offers before the Singapore meeting.
Reed Hundt, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, characterized telecom trade offers by Asian countries as disappointing in his recent trip to China. “Too many important countries in the region, such as Malaysia and Indonesia, made no offers at all in the last round of talks that ended in April of this year. And too many other countries, including Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and Hong Kong, have made offers of liberalization that fall short of full competition. If these talks are to succeed, Asian countries must make better offers,” Hundt commented.
In other matters, Lang said Barshefsky, Brittan and MITI Minister Tsukahara agreed on terms for EU participation in WTO negotiations on the proposed Information Technology Agreement.
Under the ITA, WTO countries would commit to zero tariffs on telecom equipment and information infrastructure products by 2000.
“While international organizations like the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) and the World Bank can certainly help address the telecommunications problems of developing countries,” said the FCC’s Hundt, “their efforts would be frustrated by monopoly policies. To a very large degree, the explanation for the gap between demand for and availability of telecommunications services in developing countries is the absence of open, competitive, fairly regulated markets for telecom services in these countries.”
