While Congress debates whether to compel the global satellite provider Intelsat to privatize, the company's CEO said yesterday at a United Nations conference that the company is already taking steps to that end.

"INTELSAT is privatizing for one reason, and one reason only - to be more competitive in the burgeoning international communications marketplace," CEO and Director General Conny Kullman said. He said he expects privatization to be complete by 2001.

The comments were made at the United Nations Unispace III conference being held in Vienna.

A spokesman for Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana) said legislation was still necessary to ensure that Intelsat meets acceptable guidelines for privatization. Senator Burns is the sponsor of the Open-market Reorganization for the Betterment of International Telecommunications Act, which passed the Senate unanimously on July 1.

"We need to lay out some guidelines and make them stringent enough so that Intelsat can't get around them," the spokesman, Ben O'Connell, said.

Intelsat owns and operates a global communications satellite system providing service to than 200 countries and territories.