WASHINGTON. Apr 3 The United Stales has lifted export controls on nearly all telec omnium cations equipment and on many computers as the 45 year Cold War multilateral export-control alliance called COCOM goes out of existence, says a USIS press release

The 17 COCOM members failed after five months of ne gotiations to agree on a successor regime aimed at deny- ' ing Western technology lo ter rorist sUtes. however They agreed to continue negotiating, but set no deadline

After COCOM disappears March 31. Its members agreed. they would continue controlling COCOM-llst tech nology exports in the interim during negotiations, but each country would make export decisions on its own. without consensus from or consultation with COCOM allies

All of these changes were announced in Washington March 30. the second day of an annual Department of Commerce export-control conference. which happened to coincide with the high-level COCOM meeting going on In The Hague

"As of April 1. 1994. we will liberalise licensing re qulrements on the exports of nearly all civilian telecommu nications equipment and com puters that operate up to 1.000 MTOPs (miUton theory leal operations per seeond) to civil end-users in all current COCOM controlled countries except North Korea, said a

Wliile House statement Just a month earlier COCOM had agreed to raise the level from only 67 lo 260 MTOPs

No longer requiring individual licenses after publics tion of the new regulations in the Federal Register are ex ports of all kinds of trantnnis slon signaling, switching and microwave equipment to Russia China and most other former Soviet bloc countries

Gone is the contentious US ban on fiber-optic telecommu nkauon equipment for Russia. US intelligence agencies had long maintained that providing such equipment to Russia would" interfere with their eavesdropping capability

SUH requiring licenses, however, are equipment with encryption capabilities as well as certain militarily useful ra dio equipment

Ju^lant US trier ommunica lions company officials roared with applause at the annou ncetnent. American Telephone and Telegraph spokesman Christopher Padilla said his company esumales its potential sales tn Russia and China over the next three to four years al *500 million

Industry estimates put telecommunications require menu for Russia at 875.000 million to 8100.000 million over the next 10 years and for China at more than 850.000 nhOton through 2000

Raul Freedenberg. former under secretary of commerce called the announcements "the end ot Cold Wsr controls ” predicting huge gains for the US telecommunications industry which he called the most competitive in the world

Still, many export controls remain, including those aimed at preventing proliferation ol weapons of mass destruction agreed In three other multilat eral regimes — the Missile Technology Control Regime, Ihe Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Australia Group(for rhe mica) and biological weapons)