BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Seeking to accelerate deregulation of a global information network, Vice President Al Gore told ministers and business executives from Europe and Japan yesterday that the United States planned to permit unrestricted foreign investment in U.S. telecommunications markets this year, but only to investors whose countries have opened their own markets.
In a speech at the first meeting by the Group of Seven major industrialized countries on global telecommunications, Mr. Gore put France, Germany and Japan, in particular, on notice that they would have a hard time entering certain areas of the U.S. market without letting U.S. companies compete in their countries.
Once they open their markets, Mr. Gore indicated, they would have free access to buy U.S. telephone or telecommunications concerns, with no restrictions on the percentage they could own.
"For more than 60 years, the U.S. has had limited restrictions on foreign investment in certain telecommunications services," Mr. Gore told the three-day conference, which opened Friday.
"In this respect, we are going to change, and change this year. Whether by new law or new regulation, we intend to open foreign investment in telecommunications services in the United States for companies of all countries who have opened their own markets."
Mr. Gore explained later at a news conference that the United States was offering "more openness on a reciprocal basis."
He added that a broader goal of the Clinton administration was to reach an agreement with "a critical mass" of America's trading partners by April 1996 for such open markets, at which time the United States would like to drop all barriers to all countries in telecommunications, regardless of whether they had open markets.
According to U.S. officials at the conference, however, the United States would not consider such an open agreement unless France, Germany and Japan were part of it. The three countries are currently considered the most closed of America's major trading partners.
White House aides said the plan to open the U.S. telephone markets did not alter current restrictions that prohibit foreign ownership of more than 25 percent of U.S. radio and television stations.
In the U.S. Congress, two bills are being prepared on telecommunications deregulation.
One bill, sponsored by Rep. Michael G. Oxley, an Ohio Republican, would remove all restrictions on foreign investment in telecommunications and media. Another bill by Sen. Larry Pressler, a South Dakota Republican, would call for markets to be opened on a national reciprocity basis, more akin to what Mr. Gore described Friday.