 The CISD and CIB became departments within this new ministry.However, following the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) at the WTO, the 1988 Telecommunications Act was replaced with by the Telecommunications Act of 1998 which provided the legal framework to enable the emergence of a free and democratised telecommunications market on the island.This act also created the Mauritius Telecommunications Authority (MTA) as a regulatory body for the telecommunications sector.