Bharti Telecom-Reliance qualify for 3rd mob licence

Dubai, Mar 18: Two consortiums led by India's Bharti Telecom and another by Reliance have been qualified to bid for Saudi Arabia's third mobile phone licence which is said to be worth 5.3 billion dollars.

The Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) selected seven consortiums from the nine short-listed applicants.

They are -- Samawat-Bharti, Abdullah Abdul Aziz Al-Rajhi-Reliance, Kingdom Turkcell, MTC&Partners, Oger Telecom, Tawasul-Digicel and MTN Saudi Arabia. It was announced yesterday.

''The evaluation conducted by the CITC has resulted in qualifying seven of the nine applications,'' said Dr Mohammed Al-Suwaiyel, Governor of the Commission, in a statement.

The Board of Directors of the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), chaired by Mohammed Jamil Mulla, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, selected the applicants.

The CITC will open the single sealed financial proposal of each of the seven eligible applicants during a ceremony in Riyadh on March 24 in the presence of the companies' representatives.

''These financial proposals will then be evaluated and the final results will be submitted to the board of directors and subsequently to the Council of Ministers for awarding the licence to the successful bidder,'' Sultan Al-Malik, the CITC spokesman said.

Malik did not say when the winner of the third mobile license would be announced but it would take place within a month.

The CITC did not give values for the bids for the third GSM licence but market analysts predicted that the government would receive nearly SR20 billion from the license sale.

Saudi Arabia, considered the largest telecom market in the region, also plans to end the fixed line monopoly of Saudi Telecom Company this year to liberalise the market.

There are four million fixed-line users in the Kingdom, which has a population of 27 million including expatriates.

Ten consortia led by leading international companies including Mahanagar Telephone Nigam, Verizon Communications of the US and China Telecom are competing for the Kingdom's second land phone licence.

UNI