Belarusian Ministry of Communications: in case of de monopolization Beletelecom will loose from 20 to 30% of its profit

Author: Mikhail Doroshevich

28/03/2008

Speaking at the meeting of the Parliamentary Commission on industry, transport and entrepreneurship, Belarusian Minister of communications and informatization Nikolai Pantelei said that government has no plans to liberalize telecommunications market in the near future. Minister noted that any amendments to the current law on telecommunications could be done only after tariffs rebalancing procedure.

However, in case of rebalancing Beltelecom will loose 20-30 % of its profit.

These losses wil be even bigger in case communications operators (mobile operators in particular) will be allowed to effect interconnection. Nikolai Pantelei has stressed that Ministry of communications and informatization developed tariff rebalancing plan. But this plan was not approved by the Council of Ministers. In this situation, the draft law on telecommunications should be revoked, and revised after the issue with tariffs rebalancing is settled.

The Minister has also noted that all these issues shouldn't be regarded as the only obstacle to Belarusian WTO membership. If all the other problems solved, the revised law could be adopted quickly.

According to N. Pantelei, Belarusian communications services are ten times cheper than in Russia and in other CIS countries. Even if the fees go up by 1,5 times ($2-3), the fees will remain lower than in other countries. At present, fixed phone services subscribes pay from 41% to 64% of the prime cost. Local calls fees make from 60% to 91% of the prime cost.

Useful links:

The Ministry of Communications and Informatization of the Republic of Belarus
The House of Representatives

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