At the World Trade Congress this morning, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong announced that Singapore will be tabling an improved offer to the Negotiating Group on Basic Telecommunications. Since the ...
Singapore, 24 April 1996 | For Immediate Release
At the World Trade Congress this morning, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong announced that Singapore will be tabling an improved offer to the Negotiating Group on Basic Telecommunications.
Since the privatisation of Singapore Telecom (ST), a hitherto public telecommunications service provider, Singapore has progressively introduced competition in many telecommunication services. Singapore's current offer to the negotiating group states that Singapore will open its basic telecommunication services market to competition in 2007 when ST's exclusive right for these services expires. This is the status quo condition as provided for in the licence given to ST when it was privatised.
To help achieve a liberalised global telecommunications market, and to enhance our economic competitiveness and provide greater choice and more affordable prices to our consumers, Singapore has been working on further opening up our telecommunication services to competition. With the improved offer, Singapore will license additional operators to provide basic telecommunication services from April 2002. While ST has exclusive rights to these basic services till 2007, TAS has the right to license other operators to provide these exclusive services granted to ST from 1 April 2002, provided these services are ancillary and incidental to the principal services provided by these operators. Singapore intends to invoke this right.
The improved offer will mean that competition in basic telecommunication services will be introduced five years ahead of the expiry of Singapore Telecom's exclusive rights to these services.
Market opening and liberalisation measures will never be an one-off exercise and will not stop with the conclusion of the NGBT. Singapore will work with other nations to continually look for opportunities to achieve the objective of a liberalised global telecommunications market.
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