Svyazinvest: A Failed Attempt at Creating a Big Contender
Steven M. Chernoff Russia’s attempts to introduce large-scale competition into the Russian telephone industry got off to an encouraging start in late 1995 when a public offering of shares in Svyazinvest, the holding company representing the government’s 51% stake in 85 of Russia’s 87 regional operating companies, attracted the bids of several foreign investors. But a promising set of negotiations with the Italian state telephone company ended in an imbroglio at the year’s end, turning imminent success into sudden, dismal failure. Ever since, Svyazinvest has been widely considered an unattractive investment, and the failed negotiations prompted concerns that Russia was...
The 1997 GATS Agreement on Basic Telecommunications: A Triumph for Multilateralism, or the Market?
Eric Senunas On February 15, 1997, sixty-nine governments signed an agreement seeking to liberalize the world telecommunications market – a market, according to Renato Ruggiero, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), worth “well over half a trillion dollars per year.” According to Ruggiero, these sixty-nine countries making commitments account for more than 90% of telecommunications revenue worldwide. In a statement issued February 17, 1997, Ruggerio congratulated the governments for their “determination and foresight in bringing this negotiation to a successful conclusion.” Perhaps in acknowledgment of the many delays in concluding the agreement, Ruggiero said that not all the...