Belgacom SA, the Belgian state-owned telephone company announced yesterday that it is cutting prices for international calls to compete with private firms and to prepare for a border-free European telecommunications market in 1998, and there will be some increases in international rates: Belgacom will cut prices for calls to all European states and other key countries in two stages, the first coming into effect on September 1, 1993 and the second from December 15, and the cuts will be sufficiently dramatic that a call from Belgium to a foreign country will nearly always less expensive than a call in the other direction – for a call to Germany, France, the Netherlands, Britain and Luxembourg the price per minute will fall from September 1 to 48 cents from the present 62 cents; to the US and Canada the price will fall to $1.02 from $1.15 a minute, to Japan it will fall to $1.73 from $2.16 and to Australia to $2.00 from $2.89; the domestic price changes may add between 6% and 9% to household bills depending on whether customers change the times they call; companies’ bills will fall by from 0.8% and 6% depending on the size.
