XN000022-1996-06-05 — Page 36

Reply:

(c)

Mr President,

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given that the exclusive right granted to Hong Kong Telecom (HKT) to operate international telecommunications services will not expire until the year 2006, whether the Government has given consideration to terminating the HKT's exclusive right earlier, in order to avoid contravening the WTO's commitment to liberalise the international telecommunications markets by January 1, 1998; if so, what the details

are?

The first two parts of this question concern the process and outcome of the extended track of negotiations on basic telecommunications conducted under the framework of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services. These negotiations concluded on April 30, 1996 in Geneva.

(a)

(b)

An agreement was reached on opening up markets for basic telecommunications services to foreign suppliers which will come into effect on January 1, 1998. There is no common liberalisation plan for all participants to follow. Instead each participant submits its own individual commitments; each is bound to the extent of these commitments.

Under the agreement reached, participants in the negotiations will have the flexibility to make final adjustments to their commitments between January 15 and February 15, 1997, following further consultations on a few outstanding issues which arose very late in the negotiations. Participants agreed that these issues needed to be studied more thoroughly. A special group will be formed to carry out such consultations which will commence within 90 days of May 1, 1996 and will complete by February 15, 1997.

-

partial though it was

ח

of the

We welcome the achievement negotiations. In response to comparable offers made by the major negotiating parties, Hong Kong has offered to open up the market for the following:

local basic telecommunications services

fixed

telecommunications network, mobile phones, radio paging, radio mobile data and trunked radio services;