Fourteen key trading partners don’t comply with World Trade Organ...

Singapore, S. Africa, Switzerland and Taiwan weren’t meeting market-opening requirements under WTO trade agreements. It also put 4 other countries -- Belgium, Ireland, Sweden and Spain -- on “watch list.” CompTel said Chinese telecom regulator Ministry of Information Industry (MII) had precluded growth of competitive market by applying “very narrow” interpretation of value-added services. AS result, it said, few foreign entrants had applied for licenses and none had been approved. CompTel said U.S. govt. should work with China to ensure that it established regulatory body that was separate from any basic telecom supplier. It said that task could be difficult because Chinese govt. owned and controlled all major operators in telecom industry. Japan also has “work to do” to effectively regulate Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) as dominant carrier, CompTel said. It said Japan should remove “burdensome” regulation on nondominant emerging carriers, reduce excessive fixed-to-mobile rates, create independent regulator. CompTel expressed concerns about “unnecessary” and “burdensome” distinction between licenses that it said “hinder the ability of new entrants to roll out networks quickly and cost-effectively.” It also said Japanese high fixed-to-mobile termination rates could have “significant” economic effect as more telephone calls from U.S. terminated on Japanese cellular network. Mexico hasn’t made much progress toward meeting its WTO commitments, CompTel said. It said Mexico continued to maintain barriers protecting its high international settlement rates by prohibiting alternative commercial arrangements and setting its rate well above industry norm. CompTel said Mexican regulators hadn’t issued new dominant carrier rules to prevent Telmex from engaging in anticompetitive actions. Mexico also prohibits foreign control of carriers authorized to own basic telecom facilities, violating its WTO obligations, CompTel said. France is violating Sec. 5 of Reference Paper, which requires that regulatory body be separate from and not accountable to any supplier of basic telecom services, CompTel said. It said it also was concerned about pricing and provisioning of local access leased lines in France. France Telecom (FT) refused to introduce interconnection leased lines and degraded quality of service commitments in its leased line contracts with new entrants, CompTel said. It said it was concerned that FT was giving “preferential treatment” to its retail arm for premium services. Finally, CompTel said, French govt.’s decision to provide 9 billion euro loan to FT “may violate the national treatment obligation under GATS.”