OREANDA-NEWS. March 25, 2009. Moldova is the first CIS country, which brought its legislation into conformity with EU regulations in the field of electronic communications and which applies the general authorization regime for the entry of the new operators at the market.

This is stated in the study "The comparative analysis of telecommunications in the countries with transit economies", carried out by EBRD in May and December 2008 and published in March, 2009.

As NARCETI reports, the study was conducted in 29 countries of Europe and CIS, where EBRD operates. It is a detailed analysis of the regulatory environment of each of these countries and their conformity to European standards and norms in the field of electronic communications. An assessment criterion of conformity includes three major areas: regulatory environment, market access and the operational environment.

According to EBRD estimates, Moldova has the average conformity level and ranks the second in CIS after Georgia. According to the study, Moldova has more points than the countries with the average conformity level such as: Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Montenegro, Russian Federation and Ukraine. It is also ahead the countries with the low conformity level: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

At the same time, Moldova is behind the countries with the full conformity level: Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Macedonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. As regards development of electronic communications markets of the above-mentioned countries, Moldova ranks the third in CIS on the number of telephone lines per 100 citizens, after Belarus and the Russian Federation.

The level of penetration of fixed telephony per 100 citizens is 31,2% or higher than the average in CIS (26%), in South-Eastern Europe (28%), as well as in Romania, Czech Republic, Poland, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia. As of penetration rates of broadband Internet access services (at the speed exceeding 128 Kbps), the Republic ranks the fifth in CIS (4%), after Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus.

The highest level - 6% - was registered in Russia and the lowest - up to 1% - in the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. As regards the mobile telephony penetration rate, Moldova ranks the seventh in CIS-110% (67,8% in 2008). The first place is taken by the Russian Federation and Ukraine, which exceeded the level of 120%, and the last place by Asian CIS countries, where this indicator does not reach 50%.