NBTC panel to study rules on foreign dominance

NBTC telecom committee chairman Settapong Malisuwan said that the delay in the revision could affect NBTC’s plan to auction the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum blocks in the third quarter.
Yesterday, the telecom committee concluded that it would assign the watchdog’s regulations improvement subcommittee to study how to revise the regulations regarding preventing foreign dominance. The subcommittee has to finish the study by next month. After that, the committee will revise the regulations and put them up for public hearing in May.
The subcommittee will focus on three issues: what should be the clear definition of foreign dominance; whether the NBTC should delete the existing clause requiring it to consult other state agencies once foreign dominance is found in a company; and whether it should revise the clause regarding foreign dominance via the appointment of high-ranking executives in the telecom companies.
The existing regulations define foreign dominance as direct and indirect control over a telecom company’s policies. One example of the dominance is the control via the appointment of top management, from chairman to director.
Initially, the committee had assigned the NBTC office to do this study. However, as the office was taking too long, the committee assigned the task to the subcommittee instead.