Washington liberalizes telecommunications sales

Washington liberalizes telecommunications sales

WASHINGTON (AFP): The United States will liberalize sales of non-military telecommunications equipment and most computers except to nations determined to have supported terrorism.

Russia and China are expected to be the major beneficiaries as they seek to update their technology, senior officials said privately, officials said Wednesday.

The other winners will be U.S. manufacturers better able to compete in a US$150 billion global market over the next ten years.

This liberalization affects countries belonging to the international Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Affairs (Cocom), which dissolves on March 31, 1994.

Nations considered to be exporting terrorism will still be prohibited from buying U.S. technology. They are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Syria.

With Cocom's dissolution, there will be a "narrowing of scope of multilateral controls," an official said. This will have to be replaced by bilateral accords.

Most types of computers, excluding supercomputers, are covered by the liberalization. That market alone is estimated at $1.3 billion annually.

The liberalized rules are part of the Clinton administration's new technology control strategy that reflects the end of the Cold War and the emphasis on U.S. economic security via promotion of exports.

None of the telecommunications equipment covered, for example powerful mobile cellular telephones, could be used to pose a military threat to the United States.

In any case, some 85 percent of precision instruments with military uses are already subject to other controls that are not slated to change.

Peter McCloskey, president of the Electronic Industries Association, said he was pleased by the decision to "decontrol virtually all computers up to nearly the supercomputer level and almost all telecommunications products" sold to formerly off- limits countries.