Burma plans to privatize telecommunications industry
- Written by Mizzima News
- Category: Investment
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Burma’s State Posts and Telecommunication (MPT) has worked out a plan to turn over telecommunications to four private operators, local media reported on Monday.
| A mobile phone shop in Rangoon Photo: Hein Htet / Mizzima |
Under a privatization process, the MPT would be abolished and reformed as Myanmar Telecom, which would then operate as a private company.
Yatanarpon Teleport would be merged into a new company called Yatanarpon Telecom, said the Myanmar Times.
Two more private companies, which could be foreign firms, would be included to offer mobile connections, land-line telephones, a public switchboard telephone network, information technology and internet services, the article said.
A telecom corporation would be established by the end of the year and then MPT would call for international tenders, according to the report.
The plan calls for an upgrade in user density from 75 per cent to 80 per cent by 2016, a process that would start in 2013 to raise the number of users to 39.5 million by 2016, said the report.
Meanwhile, a law to govern the privatization of telecommunications is expected to be enacted by the end of the year.