Mastel wants govt to clarify new telecoms policy
Mastel wants govt to clarify new telecoms policy
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian Telecommunications Society (Mastel)
called on the government on Friday to clarify its plan to allow
foreign investors to own up to 95 percent in local
telecommunications companies.
Mastel chairman Soekarno Abdulrachman said the policy was
ambiguous because it was not clear whether foreign telephone
operators would be allowed to set up their wholly owned
businesses here before or after the termination of the exclusive
rights awarded to PT Telkom and PT Indosat.
"It's a good plan. But, it's really vague. The government must
clarify the plan to avoid misunderstandings among foreign
investors," he told a media conference.
He was commenting on the government's recent plan to revise
the controversial Presidential Decree No. 96/2000 on negative
lists of foreign investment by changing the percentage of company
shares allowed to be owned by foreign investors.
State Minister of Investment and State Enterprises Rozi Munir
said last week that he would ask President Abdurrahman Wahid to
revise the decree by omitting the information multimedia services
from the lists and changing the foreign ownership limit in
telecommunication companies to 95 percent from 49 percent.
The revised decree was expected to be issued by the first week
of September.
Sukarno said it was good for the government to open up its
telecommunications sector for foreign investors because not many
local investors were financially capable to finance the high-cost
telecommunications projects.
However, the government needed to clarify its plan as it
contradicted an existing policy that bans local private and
foreign telephone companies from setting up their own businesses
in local and international telephone service, he said.
The government has decided to speed up the removal of the
monopoly awarded to Telkom and Indosat to 2002 and 2003 from the
original schedules of 2010 and 2004, respectively.
Sukarno, the former director general of telecommunication,
also asked the government to clarify whether the new investment
policy in telecommunications would be applied to both basic and
non-basic telecommunication services.
The existing regulations clearly distinguish between the basic
services, which relate to telephone infrastructures and call
services providers such as Telkom, Indosat and mobile telephone
operators, and non-basic services, which include radio trunking
and paging services.
Under these regulations, foreign investors can only control a
maximum of 35 percent of shares in companies that provide basic
services, but are allowed to own up to 95 percent in companies
that provide non-basic services, he said.
"Personally, I think we'd better maintain our control of the
telephone infrastructures and call service businesses for the
sake of national development interest," he said, adding that he
was afraid foreign companies would not want to build access lines
in remote areas as they would consider it unprofitable. (cst)