Mozambique Telecoms Seeks Chinese Funding

Mozambique’s state-run telecommunications company, TDM, said on Friday it was negotiating a US$25 million loan from China for its expansion programme to the country’s rural areas.

TDM chief executive officer Joaquim de Carvalho told reporters in Maputo that the fixed line network currently covers only 82 districts of the country´s 128 districts, and it is expected that the remainder will be covered by 2010, just in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup contest in South Africa.

"We will this year sign an agreement with a Chinese funding institution to get a US$25 million cloan to expand our network to rural areas, we are also focusing our attention on expanding the optic-fibre network to provincial capitals, namely Tete, Pemba and Lichinga by the end of this year”, he said.

The government recently said it is ready to license new operators in the fixed phone network to end TDM’s monopoly in the field. Mozambique has 78,000 fixed line subscribers and 3,330,000 cellular phone subscribers.

(Source: Cellular News)