USTR Signs Telecom Trade Deal With Mauritius, Will Promote It With Other Countries

If the principles become widely adopted, Kirk said they would support the global development of ICT services, including Internet and other network-based applications that are critical to innovative e-commerce, Internet search and advertising, data storage, and other services.

The principles are without prejudice to the policy objectives and legislation of Mauritius and the U.S. in areas including protection of intellectual property, privacy and confidentiality of personal and commercial data, USTR said The agreement says Mauritius and the U.S. will cooperate with each other and third countries to enhance national regulatory capacity and support the expansion of ICT networks and services. Agreement principles include:

• Transparency of laws, regulations, procedures, and administrative rulings affecting trade in ICT services.
• Governments and regulators should promote the ability of consumers legitimately to access and distribute information and run applications and services of their choice.
• Governments should not restrict the ability of suppliers to supply services over the Internet on a cross-border and technologically neutral basis.
• Governments should not prevent service suppliers of other countries, or customers of those suppliers located in their territories, from electronically transferring information internally or across borders, accessing publicly available information, or accessing their own information stored in other countries.
• Governments should not require ICT service suppliers to use local infrastructure, or establish a local presence, as a condition of supplying services.
• Governments should not give priority or preferential treatment to national suppliers of ICT services in the use of local infrastructure, national spectrum, or orbital resources.
• Governments should allow full foreign participation in ownership of their ICT services sectors.
• Governments should maximize the availability and use of spectrum by working to ensure that it is managed effectively and efficiently, and in accordance with applicable International Telecommunication Union Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) recommendations. The allocation of spectrum for commercial purposes should be carried out in an objective, timely, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner, with the aim of fostering competition and innovation.
• Governments should ensure that the regulatory authorities that oversee ICT services sectors are legally distinct and independent from ICT service providers, and have sufficient legal authority and adequate resources to perform their functions effectively.
• Governments should authorize the provision of competitive telecommunications services, wherever possible.
• Consistent with the GATS (General Agreement on Trade in Services) Telecommunications Annex’s access and use provisions, governments should ensure that public telecommunications service suppliers have the right and the obligation to negotiate and to provide interconnection on commercial terms with other providers for access to publicly available telecommunications networks and services.
• Governments should cooperate with each other to increase the level of digital literacy globally and reduce the "digital divide."