EU, US move on telecoms talks

THE European Union and United States are ready to submit improved offers on telecommunications liberalisation in world trade …

THE European Union and United States are ready to submit improved offers on telecommunications liberalisation in world trade talks following weekend talks, the European Commission said yesterday.

"That will provide the joint transatlantic leadership which will get the rest of the world, we hope, to improve their telecoms offers," a Commission spokesman, Mr Peter Guilford, said.

Mr Guilford said progress was made possible after the EU executive announced during talks with US officials in Chicago that Spain had agreed to open its telecommunications market to competition by late 1998 and to end remaining restrictions on foreign ownership.

"This was the main European hurdle to American progress in the telecoms talks," he said, adding that the United States would shortly announce its own improved offer.

READ MORE

World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks on a world telecoms accord take place this week in Geneva.

The pact was originally due to be finalised last April but Washington pulled out at the last minute, saying offers on the table, especially from Asia and Latin America, were not good enough.