Page 130 - SAMENA Trends - June-July 2020

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

A SNAPSHOT OF REGULATORY ACTIVITIES

IN THE SAMENA REGION

Afghanistan

A meeting was organized between ATRA and Ministry of lower the charges, MCIT said. According to the Acting Minister of
Communication and Information Technology leadership for Communications, although the prices of some companies have
providing better services, further coordination and distinction been decreased, standard services have not been yet provided.
of duties. Mr. Mohammad Omar Mansoor Ansari, ATRA As per the new policy, state-owned companies will invest $175
Acting Chairman and Technical Vice-Chairman, stressed on million by the end of this year to improve the quality of services,
technical problems and as well cooperation between the two he said. The ministry also acknowledges that the infrastructure
governmental entities in addition to joint working, servicing and of state-owned companies is not standardized, and thus the
monitoring issues. “ATRA has accelerated telecom infrastructure government has decided to standardize them this year. “Our goal
strengthening and monitoring process and has collaborated is to create a new policy to provide better services to citizens and
with all governmental organizations in the field of digitalization”, to invest plenty in state-owned companies,” said Fahim Hashemi,
added Mr. Ansari. ATRA, MCIT and NISA discussed on finalizing MCIT Acting Minister. On the other hand, economists criticize the
a comprehensive mechanism for digitalizing governmental MCIT leadership, noting that the ministry has not been able to
organizations as per instruction of H.E President Mohammad develop a good plan to provide standard services. According to
Ashraf Ghani. Mr. Mohammad Faheem Hashimi, Acting Minister them, telecommunication and Internet services in Afghanistan
of Communication and IT, emphasized on ATRA activities and are more unsustainable and expensive than in any other country.
achievements and both sides stressed on keeping on coordinating “There has been a lot of investments in telecommunications, but
meetings for improving affairs and services. (July 5, 2020) atra.gov.af standard services are not being provided to Afghans, which means
that the strategies in this ministry are not efficient and capacity
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology needs to be built,” said Hakimullah Sediqqi, an Economist. Experts
says it has developed a new policy to regulate telecommunications point out that MCIT is one of the most important sectors in the
and Internet services. This policy will help improve the quality of body of the government, but it has not been able to bring the best
services by all telecommunications companies as well as it will out of it. (June 13, 2020) ariananews.af

Algeria

The government has established a special working group to draw ic Communications’) in terms of ‘sharing infrastructure, pooling
up a roadmap to make local loop unbundling (LLU), domestic resources, promotion of competition and encouragement of in-
mobile network roaming and number portability more effective. vestment in the telecommunications market.’ Expected roadmap
Telecoms Minister Brahim Boumzar oversaw the formation of targets include improving the availability and choice of services
the interdepartmental committee, telling press that the group will for subscribers in Algeria’s sparser populated interior regions,
examine ‘the different technical, legal and economic aspects’ of and forcing operators to improve quality of services.
Law 18-04 of May 2018 (‘General Rules on Post and Electron- (June 19, 2020) Agence Ecofin

Bahrain

Bahrain’s Spectrum Strategy and Coordination Committee has sector in the Kingdom. The second meeting of the Committee,
approved the National Frequency Plan, based on the findings of which was held remotely and attended by representatives of nine
the World Radio Conference (WRC-19) and the needs of the ICT entities, was chaired by Mohammed Ali Al Qaed, Chief Executive

130 JUNE-JULY 2020