Pakistan’s Telecom Has No Competition Rules, Two Regulators Have Been Fighting Over It for a Decade

The Telecom Competition Rules, intended to provide a dedicated competition framework for one of Pakistan’s most economically significant sectors, have spent a decade cycling through consultations, revisions, legal vettings, and inter-institutional meetings. What the Rules Were Supposed to DoThe Telecom Policy 2015 envisaged a dedicated set of competition rules specifically tailored to Pakistan’s telecommunications sector. Why the Timing Could Not Be WorseThe decade-long absence of dedicated telecom competition rules has always been a regulatory gap. The sector-specific half of that framework, the Telecom Competition Rules, does not exist. The Bottom LineTen years is too long to draft a set of competition rules for any sector.