Foreign investors are asking to cancel the fee to the Population Support Fund withheld from mobile operators and to reduce the fee for porting numbers.
The White Book of the Association of Foreign Investors notes that the fee for the provision of mobile communication services in the amount of 2.5% of the income from sales related to these services is one of the important sources of financing for the Fund for the Support of the Population. But this levy, introduced in 2000, is considered a "luxury tax" and is no longer relevant. Foreign investors believe that this levy for mobile operators is discriminatory and unfair, restricting rather than stimulating investment in the development of modern electronic communications networks necessary for the development of the economy in general and social progress. Moreover, this levy distorts competition in the electronic communications market. From 2022, the amount of this fee is planned to be reduced to 1.5%, but the FIA proposes to amend the Law on the Fund for the Support of the Population and completely abolish this fee. In addition, the FIA draws attention to the costs of operators associated with porting mobile and fixed numbers. Today, operators cover the costs of creating a centralized porting database - this is 920 thousand euros, the entire amount is paid to the administrator of the porting database - NP BASE (an enterprise with foreign capital NP Base, created by the Lithuanian company MEDIAFON UAB - the winner of the competition held by National Agency for Regulation of Electronic Communications and Information Technologies of the Republic of Moldova in August 2012). In addition, operators pay a fee of € 0.0308 for each assigned telephone number. Accordingly, the operators own approximately 8 million numbers, for which they pay almost 250 thousand euros per month (3 million euros per year). Companies consider these charges to be unreasonable both economically and legally, stressing that this is reflected in tariffs for end-users of telephone services. The White Book states that the contract with NP BASE will expire on July 30, 2023, and the National Agency for Regulation of Electronic Communications and Information Technologies of the Republic of Moldova will be obliged to organize a new competition to select the administrator of the porting database. According to the operators, the database will become the property of the National Agency for Regulation of Electronic Communications and Information Technologies of the Republic of Moldova, therefore, commercial proposals within the framework of the new tender should include only the costs of managing and maintaining this database, without issuing a license for the right to use the database, therefore, in the future, the costs associated with porting should be reduced to a minimum. “Otherwise the National Agency for Regulation of Electronic Communications and Information Technologies of the Republic of Moldova should organize consultations with suppliers in order to determine alternative solutions for further support of telephone number porting services,” the operators believe. // 28.09.2021 — InfoMarket.
