DUBAI, 14 May 2006 — The UAE Telecommunications Supreme Committee, the entity empowered by the government to oversee the telecommunications sector, has announced its intention to liberalize the telecommunications sector by 2015.
The move comes as the UAE seeks to regularize the telecommunications market in line with World Trade Organization (WTO) recommendations and chalks out a bilateral free trade agreement with the USA and Australia.
Sultan ibn Saeed Al-Mansouri, UAE minister of governmental sector development and chairman of the Supreme Committee for the Supervision of the Telecommunications Sector, said: “The ICT and telecommunications sector in the UAE has developed tremendously in the past three decades, and we’re working toward market liberalization to foster competition and innovation in the better interests of the economy. By agreeing to and implementing a number of facilitative measures, we’re aiming for full yet non-disruptive liberalization of this all important sector by 2015.” The UAE Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRA), in consultation with UAE Telecom Supreme Committee, is developing necessary procedures for an orderly transit to free market principles. The transit procedure has brought on board long-term strategic planners as well as marketing experts and telecommunications representatives to ensure a long-term viable solution that contributes to the telecom sector’s wellbeing.
Mohamed Nasser Al-Ghanim, director general of the TRA, said: “Market liberalization will help foster a culture of innovation by introducing competition and maintaining a level playing field for providers to woo customers by providing superior services. We’re working closely with several partners with the help of UAE Telecom Supreme Committee to assure a standard set of applicable procedures, policies and directives applicable to the UAE. Our efforts will bear full fruit by 2015, by which time we hope to herald in a fully matured market with a diversity of key players contributing to rapid growth.”
In an April 2006 report, the WTO analyzed the UAE’s economic progress and commended its economical growth of six percent per year over the past decade and nine percent in 2003-2005. The report, while noting positive diversification in the UAE’s economy, also argued that liberalization and a reduction to entry barriers would be a key inducement to further economic growth.
