Story: Exploring international regulations for telecommunications (en)

Telecommunications is a rapidly evolving sector in most economies and the regulatory environment in which it operates attracts a great deal of attention. The regulatory regime related to this, set by the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), becomes increasingly important to countries acceding to the organization.

In collaboration with the WTO, the International Trade Centre recently organized a workshop for Uzbekistan, to provide insights into crucial telecommunications regulatory principles and multilateral arrangements.

Participants gained a thorough understanding of key regulatory disciplines of relevance to the telecommunications services sector. In particular, Provisions of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), including its Annex on Telecommunications, and the WTO Reference Paper on Basic Telecommunications were discussed in detail.

The participating Uzbek government officials, involved in the WTO accession negotiations, learnt about the experiences of recently acceded WTO-member countries, with emphasis on their trade liberalizing practices and scheduling commitments. Issues related to the local telecommunications market in Uzbekistan, such as ensuring a balanced development of urban and rural sector as required by the National Development Strategy “Digital Uzbekistan – 2030,” were also touched upon during the event.

Representatives from the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade, the Ministry for Development of Information Technologies and Communications, and the Ministry of Economic Development and Poverty Reduction, together with the national telecommunications operator - JSC “UZBEKTELEKOM” attended the training.

The International Trade Centre organized this training through the “Facilitating the Process of Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO” project. It is a five-year initiative funded by the European Union (EU) that aims to support Uzbekistan's development plans to modernize its economy through leveraging the process of the country`s accession to the organization.