The government of Madagascar has lowered the country’s telecommunications tax from 10% to 8%, effective from 1 January 2021.

According to the country’s telecommunications ministry, the decision to lower the tax stemmed from the government's desire to ensure that citizens pay less for telecommunications services.

Ranesa Firiana Rakotonjanahary, Secretary General of Madagascar’s Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Digital Development (MPTDN) said the Ministry conducted a study on how to reduce the cost of telecommunications services in the country and the results showed that reducing the excise tax will be beneficial to consumers at all levels.

Rakotonjanahary said the Ministry will closely monitor the operators to ensure that there are real reductions in the prices of services.

He added that the tax reduction will also benefit businesses whose operations rely on internet access.

Smart village project

In a related development, the Ministry has also commenced consultations for raising awareness on its planned smart village project.

“Many projects will be implemented in remote and isolated areas. The goal is to reach as many people as possible with these projects,” stated the Ministry.

In spite of the challenges posed by COVID-19, Madagascar’s telecommunications market has continued to show signs of improvement.

The country is on track to host the landing station for the Africa-1 cable system and this is expected to be ready in 2021.

Moreover, the country’s national backbone network has been extended to 11,000km while Gulfsat Madagascar has secured a licence to become the second national backbone provider, thus ending Telma's long-time dominance.

The government is also going ahead with plans to deploy free Wi-Fi hotspots, while Orange Madagascar has completed a national LTE-A network upgrade.