Friday, October 8, 2004, the Vice-President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications of Romania, Ms. Alexandrina Hirtan, participated in the European Conference in the Field of Competition and Competitiveness held in Constanta between October 7 – 10, 2004.
Ms. Alexandrina Hîrtan held a speech during the workshop entitled “Monopoly Liberalisation: the Role of Authorities in the Liberalisation Process”, presenting the measures taken by ANRC, which drove to facilitating transition from monopoly to competition in the electronic communications market.
With a view to removing the structural barriers from the market and to creating the premises for developing durable competition, ANRC defined a regulatory framework in order to prevent abuses of the providers with a dominant position, which facilitates the entry of the new players in a competitive market.
“The rising trend of the competitive market in the field of communications is mentioned in the 2004 Country Report, which assesses Romania’s progress in harmonising with the community acquis and the full liberalisation of the sector as firmly developing in the process of promoting and consolidating competition. Electronic communications are a fact in Romania, given the market entry of alternative providers of fixed-line telephony, as the Country Report emphasizes”, the ANRC Vice-president declared.
The double number of electronic communications network providers – as compared to the same period of 2003 -, the increase of the traffic volume and of the number of telephone subscribers, and the alternative providers’ commercial offers for local, long-distance and national calls prove the development of the market.
This is the first edition of the European Conference in the Field of Competition and Competitiveness held in Romania, benefiting from the support of the European Union, and is attended by important representatives of the Competition Authorities from the UE Member States and of the official partner organisations under the honorary patronage of the European Commissioner, Mario Monti and of the President of the Competition Council, Mihai Berinde.