Agreement on cutting roaming charges to be signed Monday

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications Rasim Ljajic will on Monday in Budva, Montenegro, sign an agreement on cutting roaming charges in regional public mobile networks.

The agreement will be signed by the ministers of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Albania.

The agreement envisions a gradual reduction of mobile roaming charges in the signatory countries over the next three years to bring them to EU levels.

Ljajic has told Tanjug that the agreement will kick-start the idea into action, and that consultations on its implementation will be held with operators.

The agreement will include sms and voice traffic, as well as data transfer.

Ljajic also said that the directors of the five national regulatory bodies launched the initiative to limit regional roaming charges at a meeting held in Skopje on August 21.

The initial agreement was the first step, he said, adding that the signing of the agreement in Budva will be the second, paving the way for talks with operators in each country on how to operationalise the idea.

Consultations with Serbian operators are still pending, Ljajic said, adding that he does not expect this to be an easy process.

"All European Union countries have faced problems when they were adopting directives on levelling roaming charges. We hope that mobile operators will find an interest in this," Ljajic said.

Also, the agreement will not be binding for operators, but merely confirm that that the five countries have consented to the idea.

Photo Tanjug/S. Radovanovic (illustration)