The Information & Communications Technology Authority, (ICTA) said last week that the recent inflation statistics released by the Government’s Economic & Statistics Office demonstrated that significant price reductions in the telecommunications market have been delivered since the introduction of competition.

“Consumers saw a 15.1 percent decrease in telecommunications pricing in 2005 on top of the 3.7 percent decrease in 2004,” said Stuart Diamond, Chairman of the ICTA Board.

“This demonstrates that competition in the telecommunications market since 2003 has been very successful.”

The ICTA said that in comparison to the average consumer price change, these price reductions are especially impressive. Whilst telecommunications prices dropped in 2004 and 2005, average consumer prices increased by 4.4 percent in 2004 and 7.0 percent in 2005.

“These results are consistent with the goal of enabling the competitive market to benefit consumers. Clearly, competition is delivering those benefits in the Cayman Islands,” Mr Diamond added.