A Hong Kong-based telecommunications company, with billions of dollars in annual turnover, will send its representatives to Bucharest this week to decide whether establishing a new telecom operator with Posta Romana (Romanian Post Office) is worth the effort. Some other players may join this venture, as well: Banca Comerciala Romana (Romanian Commercial Bank - BCR), SIF (Financial Investment Company) Banat-Crisana, SIF Oltenia and Grupul Industrial Roman (Romanian Industrial Group). Posta Romana would not elaborate on this new telecom operator, for fear "it might reach the competition."
Posta Romana will propose China Unicom to participate as shareholder in establishing a telecom company in Romania; the talks with the Chinese operator's officials are set to commence in Bucharest this week.
"I hope we will convince them to back us in establishing the new operator, particularly because Unicom has the necessary experience in this regard, but we are also considering other partnership options," Gabriel Mateescu, Posta Romana chairman said at the end of last week.
China Unicom was set up in Hong Kong in February 2000. It provides GSM and CDMA services to 34.1 million customers (figures available on June 30, 2002). It posted $2.17bn in H1, 2002 turnover. China Unicom is listed on the New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges.
Last Friday, Posta Romana short-listed four companies that had submitted bids for the new telecom operator: Grupul Industrial Roman, Banca Comerciala Romana, SIF Banat-Crisana and SIF Oltenia. The other contenders were Electromagnetica, Romservice International, Logic Telecom and SkyTel.
Mateescu said details about the business plan of the new operator would be presented to the partners this week.
"We will discuss several aspects of this venture, such as the volume of investments or the profitability of this business. I hope we will have worked out all the details by the end of February, so that we can legally establish the new operator. The start-up capital will be $1 million," Mateescu said.
He added BCR's participation as shareholder of the new operator could help Posta Romana get funding from China's Export-Import Bank for equipment, which was to be supplied by Chinese producer ZTE.
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