The government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) announced Friday to launch a three-month consultation on the establishment of the Communications Authority as a unified regulator for the electronic communications sector.

The new authority would be responsible for enforcing the existing Telecommunications Ordinance and Broadcasting Ordinance while the existing statutory powers and functions of the Telecommunications Authority and Broadcasting Authority would be transferred to the new authority, according to the government.

Announcing the proposal at a luncheon meeting organized by the local information and communications technology organizations, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology Joseph Wong said technological convergence had been blurring the boundary between telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology.

"It is only natural that convergence at the technological and market levels be matched by restructuring at the regulatory level, " he said, adding this has been the international trend, from the Federal Communications Commission in the United States and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, to the more recent establishment of the Office of Communications in Britain.

As Hong Kong is in the forefront of convergence, Wong said " there is an urgent need to establish a unified regulator to enhance regulatory efficiency and further promote consumer benefits."

After carefully studying the overseas experience, the HKSAR government suggested adopting a two-stage approach in rationalizing the regulatory regime.

In the first stage, the government would set up the authority by merging the existing two regulators in broadcasting and telecommunications.

In the next stage, when the new unified regulator was in place, the new authority would participate in reviewing and rationalizing the two ordinances with the administration.

Wong said the staged approach would enable the HKSAR government to set up the unified regulator as soon as possible to meet the challenge of convergence.

"Upon the inception of the authority, we will review the legislation pertinent to the regulation of broadcasting and telecommunications with special attention to those provisions related to competition and strengthening the protection of consumers' interests," Wong said.

The government also proposed to merge the Office of the Telecommunications Authority and the Broadcasting Division of the Television and Entertainment Licensing Authority to form the Office of the Communications Authority as the executive arm of the new authority.

According to the outcome of the consultation, the government plans to introduce the necessary legislation on the establishment of the new unified regulator into the Legislative Council by the end of the year.

Source: Xinhua