October 1999

Romania Update memo

The following report outlines new developments in the past three months and the state of on-going developments.

1. Regulatory framework

During the summer, the legislative activity is temporarily suspended due to the parliament vacation. For this period the legislative authority goes to the Government, that tries to solve the most urgent matters.

2. Public telecommunications

As the deadline for liberalization of the public telecommunication network is set for January 1^st, 2003, it might be expected minor legislative activity in this area for the moment. This has good as well as bad aspects. The state has kept a low profile in regulating the tariffs policy not only of the public telecommunications area, but also in other sectors (like mobile communications, VSAT).The good aspect is that where is competition (mobile communications), the rates are lowering and a variety of services and subscriptions are offered to the public. From the dark side, the privatized RomTelecom operator, being in a monopolist position, increased the tariffs well over the dynamic of the exchange rate ROL/USD. This triggered action from the Office of Competition, that announced a procedure of tariffs control scheduled on October 1^st, the date at which the new tariffs of RomTelecom will come into action.

3. Internet

The regulations somehow relaxed in the field of Internet allowed for an increasing number of new companies to offer services in this area.Again the lack of quality control makes the choice of the individual quite difficult, but the prices tend to go down because of the competition.

4. IT regulations

The draft law for IT - the "Code for Information Technologies Development and Use", finalised by ANCI is still on the Parliament agenda to be debated. The draft was submitted to the European Commission – DG XIII, and observations were received in March 1998. The second revised Code was approved by the Government and forwarded to Parliament in 1999.

5. Information Society Umbrella Policies

The National Research, Development and Innovation Programme (RDI) was adopted through Government Order no. 562/1999. The main programmes are:

• Economic Growth through research and innovation
• Quality and standardization
• Improvement of the infrastructure of the standardization and quality
• Cooperation and international partnership

Even if there is no specific reference to the Information Society (IS) research activities (the most dynamic and rewarding), it is expected that there will be tenders from the research organizations and other companies trying to apply the IS particular methods to attend the goals of the national RDI.

However, since the term IS is no longer explicitly present in the RDI, specific care is anticipated from the part of the regulating body (National Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation) to promote the projects with significant impact on the IS aspects.

6. Legislative measures in the past 6 months