DUSHANBE, September 14, Asia-Plus  -- The CCP (Calling Party Pays) model will be introduced in Tajikistan beginning on January 1, 2008, the First Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister, Amonullo Ashour, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

According to him, this issue has practically been settled and it just remains to resolve issues related to pricing policy on this model.

Calling Party Pays (CPP) is the arrangement in which the mobile subscriber does not pay for incoming calls. Instead, the calling party pays for those calls.

“The main thing in this issue was for us to observe rights and interests of all participating parties, and first of all, consumers,” the deputy minister said, noting that after long analysis of the issue they decided to introduce the CPP model beginning on January 1, 2008.    

Ashour did not give exact rates of inter-network connections, “because not all members of the working commission have signed appropriate document so far.”  

In the meantime, according to some sources, operators will pay each other for the inter-network connection at the rate of 11.5 dirams per minute.  This price includes VAT as well.

According to the antimonopoly commission, all incoming calls will be free of charge and prices of outgoing calls of cellular phones will be lowered.