Sultan Al Mansoori chairs the GCC Ministerial Committee for Post, Telecom & IT

The meeting was chaired by HE Sultan Al Mansoori, Minister of Governmental Sector Development, Chairman of UAE Telecom Supreme Committee and Chairman of UAE Post Board of Directors. The meeting was attended by all concerned delegations heads and accompanying team from the GCC countries. The final recommendations from this committee and its emerging subcommittees have been published and announced yesterday in the meeting during the final concluding session.

Commenting on this, Al Mansoori stated by saying:

'The decisions taken were positive in an unprecedented consensus that was reached in a brotherly atmosphere. Once applied, they will put GCC countries along side the most advanced countries in Post, Telecom and IT.' He added by saying: 'I am pleased in this regard to announce the positive recommendations adopted, which the GCC nationals will feel their tangible results soon after they get implemented.'

The subcommittee for Telecom Regulations and IT issued its recommendations to adopt the type approval procedures for wireless and wireful equipments for GCC countries, while the GCC General Secretariat has decided to invite a team of specialized experts in the field from GCC countries to study the possibility to unify the procedures for GCC equipment type approval. In addition, it was decided to establish a regional center for computing emergency (CERT) for the GCC. In addition, the rest of GCC member states are encouraged to establish similar ones in their respective countries. Also, the recommendations took into consideration the development of the human resources in GCC, publishing the roaming charges among all of GCC countries, along with coordination among member states to prepare digital television channels plan, coordination among GCC countries regarding the allocation of Radio channels, GSM network overlap in the member states and their participation in regional conferences related to this area.

The subcommittee for Telecom and IT operators issued its recommendations in order to issue uniformed interconnection pricing among telecom operators in member states, starting this year, uniform the prepaid mobile roaming services price list and issuing a common GCC strategy for telecom sector.

The Post subcommittee issued its many recommendations, among which were the recommendation to issue a common GCC stamp, establishing new postal services for GCC countries called 'Khaleeji Express' and establishing a GCC postal delivery company. The Postal subcommittee also recommended participating in international postal forums and exhibitions using a GCC unified team under the name of 'The GCC Postal Group'. In addition to that, it was decided to uniform the electronic interconnectivity of the GCC postal services websites.

The final recommendations also included providing complete support to the GCC countries that are nominating themselves for International Telecommunication Union (ITU) council membership during 2006-2010, which are namely UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Also, a complete consensus to offer support for the Saudi candidate applying for the position of Director of Development Sector in the International Telecommunication Union was reached.

It is worth mentioning that this meeting is the 15th one for the GCC ministerial committee for Telecom, Post and IT. The above recommendations are expected to have positive results on all levels after its implementations.