Telecom Legislation: The Year Ahead

In 2002, China's telecom sector was very much domestically focused - on market regulation, and market consolidation. 2003 heralds the prospect of not only more regulatory activity, but also the possibility of increased foreign participation and investment.

When China joined the WTO in December 2001, seven areas of "value-added" telecom services were listed in China's WTO Schedule of Specific Commitments on Services (WTO commitments), namely electronic mail, voice mail, online information and database retrieval, electronic data interchange, enhanced/value-added facsimile services (including store and forward, store and retrieve), code and protocol conversion, and online information and/or data processing (including transaction processing).