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Pak telecom deregulation policy likely in July

REUTERS, Islamabad
Pakistan's long-awaited policy to deregulate the telecommunication industry is expected to be unveiled before July to help attract private investment in the telecom sector, a top regulator said on Saturday.
Shahzada Alam Malik, the chairman of the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA), said at least two new cellular phone licences would be auctioned in line with the deregulation policy.
"Hopefully, it will soon be presented to the cabinet . . . it should be announced in a couple of months," he told Reuters in an interview.
Malik said he expected the new policy to attract significant investment from the Gulf region, China and Southeast Asian countries in Pakistan's telecom sector, which is virtually monopolised by the state-run Pakistan Telecommunication Co Ltd PTCA.KA.
"The prospects for investment are very attractive, very bright. People are very keen and are making queries," he added.
"Even if we get a one-billion dollar investment per year in the next few years, it will be a substantial investment."
In recent years, average annual investment in Pakistan has hovered around the $500 million mark, although the government expects it to reach $1 billion in the current financial year, which ends in June.
Pakistan's image suffered in the 1990s because of political and economic instability, sanctions imposed after nuclear tests in 1998 and a dispute with foreign-backed independent power producers over tariffs.
PTCL, which held monopoly by law until December 2002, was due to be privatised earlier this year but the selloff was delayed because of changes of government and a lack of interest from foreign investors in fixed, or landline,
business.
Pakistan's fixed-line ownership is extremely low -- about 4 million among a population of 140 million people -with PTCL owning about 95 per cent of the business.
Alam said fixed-line ownership could double over the next five years but he said there was "tremendous" potential for growth and investment in
the cellular networks.
"Three years back, there were just 300,000 to 350,000 mobile (phone) subscribers . . . Now we have two million and in the next four to five years it will grow up to 10 million," he said.
Cellular usage has grown strongly after the introduction of the "callingparty-pays" regime in 2000, allowing incoming calls to be paid by the caller.