Dubai: The GCC Ministerial Committee for Post, Communications and Information Technology has reached an agreement to gradually reduce rates for roaming, telephone calls, text messaging and data services throughout the GCC countries.

In a meeting held in Doha, Qatar, the stakeholders plan to reduce call rates from April 1, 2016, for a period of three years. The reduction will be applied for local calls within the roaming country, incoming calls while roaming and text messages.

Regarding data services while roaming in the GCC, the process will begin on April 1, 2016, and will continue for five years.

“The gathering complements a series of previous meetings and consultation sessions, in order to reach the highest levels of integration and exchange of experience between stakeholders in this sector, throughout the GCC,” Hamad Obaid Al Mansouri, Director General of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the UAE, said in a statement.

The roaming rates within the GCC are slightly higher when compared to other countries but the main issue is the data services.

“Rates for data services are extremely high when compared to other countries,” Sukhdev Singh, vice-president at market research and analysis services provider AMRB, told Gulf News.

“It is a positive move and will smoothen the businesses but I don’t think it is going to drastically change business dynamics,” he said.

Most businesses view GCC as a “region rather than an individual country”. The intra-GCC tourism will get a push from this move. He said that people used to keep their mobile phones on while roaming but consumption of data services is “hardly nil”. Reduction in rates for data services from April 1, 2016, will give a boost to “data consumption and better connectivity”.

“We emphasise that the step to reduce roaming prices will have a significant role in the promotion of tourism at the GCC level, in general, and will have a significant impact in furthering the UAE’s presence from a regional tourism point of view, be it business or leisure,” Al Mansouri said.

He said that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) under the guidance of the Board of Directors, has made great efforts in cooperating with licensed service providers, to study all aspects of roaming prices at the national level in the UAE. The recent decisions come in support of government policies in this framework. The Qatar meeting also discussed the joint preparations by the GCC team in charge of participation in the World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 that will be held in Geneva in November.

The team will conduct a meeting at the ITU headquarters in July, followed by participation in the meetings of the Arab Spectrum Management Group, which will be held in Morocco in August. These meetings will discuss all the details and the adoption of working papers by GCC countries and the Arab Countries Group in this global conference.