Even the stodgiest markets in Asia are starting to liberalise, thanks to irresistible evidence of the benefits of competition and an agreement signed in 1997 at the World Trade Organisation which opened up telecoms.
Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank's country director, has said the government should not get "sidetracked" by the short-term rebound, but focus instead on "the fundamental constraints to the economy's competitiveness".That means micro reforms such as opening up the telecoms and retail industries to foreign competition.
While opening up of telecom sector would invite voices of political dissent against the existing political system that is in place, opening the financial sector would risk the fragile economy to outside world.
Enacted as part of an opening up of the telecoms sector in 2013, the legislation bans use of the telecoms network to "extort, threaten, obstruct, defame, disturb, inappropriately influence or intimidate".
He steered the company through its partial privatization two years later and prepared it for the opening up of the EU's telecom market to full competition, as mandated by Brussels.
"Their day of reckoning has been postponed, but not cancelled," he says.The key to what comes next, according to Mark Bruneau of Adventis, a telecoms consultancy, is the opening up of what is known as the "last-mile bottleneck".
Opening up the energy sector to new players and investors would increase competition and innovation as has been seen in telecoms where incumbent BT has been forced to modernise against incoming rivals such as Sky and TalkTalk.
The process of opening up the mobile telecom sector is conditional on a telecommunications law that has yet to pass through Burma's parliament.
A year and a half after Congress opened up local telecoms markets to competition, the seven otherwise stodgy "Baby Bells" have proved remarkably adept at defending their turf.
You would have done better by compiling a survey of costs and explaining what it takes to bring them down.Rakesh RajaniDar es Salaam, TanzaniaSIR – Pushing for poor countries to open up their telecoms markets doesn't mean that the poor will automatically have access to a mobile network.
