In the scope of the Hellenic Aid “eCommunications Sector Capacity Building Program”, which is addressed to the Western Balkans countries, INA Academy in collaboration with the Communications Regulatory Authority of Bosnia-Herzegovina organised the two-day Regulatory Training Workshop entitled: “LLU/Broadband” and “Numbering and Number Portability” on 18 and 19 February in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The workshop attended more than 30 executives of National Regulatory Authorities and associated Ministries from Albania, the Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

During the Training Workshop in Sarajevo the rapid growth of the ICT markets despite the economic crisis was underlined. Specifically, in Western Balkans the licensing of new providers and the implementation of new technologies are smoothly proceeding. At the same time important steps have been noticed in regulating subjects while the essential institutional structures have been created. However, it was stressed that further education and briefing of NRA executives are required in order to develop the necessary skills that will help them to correspond to their duties, so that the desirable convergence with the European Union standards will be achieved.

This Training Workshop was the second to be conducted in a WB country, the first one took place in Budva, Montenegro on the subject “Market Regulation and the concept of Significant Market Power” on 1 October 2008. These Workshops are part of a series of trainings addressed to the National Regulatory Authorities of Western Balkans that will be completed by the end of May 2009. The forthcoming trainings are scheduled to take place in Budva, Montenegro on 5 and 6 March on subjects “ Price Regulation and Price Caps & Retail Minus” and “Market regulation, Market Analysis: Towards 8 Markets” , in Tirana, Albania on 12 March on the subject “ Spectrum Management and Spectrum Economics” , in Belgrade, Serbia on 16 and 17 March on subjects “Introduction to Anti-trust and Merger Analysis” and “Competition Investigations & Dispute Resolution” and in Thessaloniki on 7 and 8 April on subjects “Cost of capital and introduction to economics of anti-competitive practices” and “Next Generation Network access & Voice over IP”. The main objective of the “eCommunications Sector Capacity Building Program” is the development of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, which is regarded a sector of strategic importance for economic growth and catalytic for the improvement of the quality of life in Western Balkans.

The objective of Training Workshop which took place in Sarajevo, and those which will follow in the other countries is the development of the essential soft infrastructure in the ICT sector, which is expected to accelerate the alignment of the WB markets with the European Union standards, with consequence the access of the society of citizens in the new technologies. The establishment of a transparent and fair regulatory framework in ICT will allow the growth of the competition and will facilitate the access in services in low prices for the citizens, as it happens in all countries of European Union in the latest years.

The education that is provided by INA Academy in scope of the Regulatory Training Workshops is certified by the ITU, while, according to the results of the participants’ evaluation, the training was absolutely successful and corresponded completely to their expectations and needs. INA Academy intends to continue the successful organisation of the Trining Workshops in the other Western Balkans countries aiming at the creation of critical mass of know-how in the targeted countries.

In Telecommunications sector, the main challenge is related to the development of a legislative and regulatory framework which will allow the creation modern and competitive communication infrastructures, will strengthen the offer of low cost services that are based on ICT and will build a stable environment that will attract international investments. This is also the main objective of “eCommunications Sector Capacity Building Program”, which was submitted by INA Academy after the SE Europe Regulatory Brainstorming Session in Belgrade on 17 April 2007.