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Telecoms giant China Unicom plans to have at least one foreign strategic investor by the end of the year, vice-president Li Zhengmao was quoted as saying Thursday.
China Unicom, China's second-largest telecom firm, currently has only one outside strategic investor, the Li Ka-shing owned conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.
The mainland's expected entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) later this year will likely remove existing barriers to expansion of outside investment in the telecommunications sector.
Li said the exact number of strategic investors in the company would be determined by China's Ministry of the Information Industry, the Hong Kong iMail newspaper reported.
Although he declined to name potential partners, possible candidates include Japan's NTT DoCoMo.
Li also said the company planned to spend about US$1.82 billion to develop its code division multiple access (CDMA) mobile phone business.
The company expects to see its CDMA users increase from the current 750,000 to 10 million by the end of 2002.
(China Daily 02/08/2001)
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