5:16:31 PM | 10/7/2008
Vietnam&rsquos GTel and Russian telecommunications provider Vimpel-Communications on July 8 inked a cooperative pact to establish a mobile telecommunications joint venture in Vietnam called GTEL-Mobile.
Under the deal, Gtel will hold a 60 per cent stake in the joint venture and VimpelCom will invest US$267 million for a 40 per cent stake in Vietnamese joint venture.
Global Telecommunications Corp., a Vietnamese state-owned business, and its subsidiary GTEL TSC, are VimpelComs partners in the venture. VimpelCom will receive 40 per cent earnings in GTEL-Mobile, while Global Telecommunications will hold 51 per cent and GTEL will own 9 per cent.
Vietnam earned VND33 trillion (US$2 billion) in revenues from telecom activities in the first half of 2008, up 32 per cent on year, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications.
Local telecom companies also reported 12.8 million new phone subscribers in the six-month span, raising the total number of phone subscribers in the country to 61.8 million. Of the figure, mobile phone subscribers account for 78.8 per cent.
At present, Vietnam&rsquos average teledensity is 69.5 phones per 100 residents. (Local sources)
Vietnamese
