Government is expecting 75% payments to be received before budget for the recently auctioned 3G & 4G licenses. Two of the mobile operators have shown interest in paying all their bidding price upfront as they don’t want to pay 3% additional interest on 5 years long installments.
Zong is planning to pay $500 million by next week as told by Minister for Information & Technology Anusha Rehman in a meetingheld at Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Zong won a 3G license for 10 MHz spectrum and another 4G license for 10 MHz spectrum during the auction that was held on this Wednesday.
Anusha Rehman said that another company was also ready to pay its promised amount of bid as soon as possible. PTA Chairman Dr. Ismail Shah said that the cellular operators are excited to launch 3G technology as soon as possible. Eagerness of these companies is visible with their advertisement campaigns getting started as soon as result of auction process was announced.
Talking about the investment opportunities, Minister said that “The mobile companies will be investing $4bn in the next two to three years. One of the cellular companies (Mobilink) is already in the process of installing 1,600 booster towers to offer telecommunication services in less served locations,”
Minister also mentioned the about the probable plans of Chinese company to establish a mobile manufacturing plant in Pakistan. She said that “This is especially necessary when Pakistan spends more than $900 million on import of telecom equipment and telephone/cellular handsets every year. The ministry has offered them premises and tax concessions for manufacturing telecom equipment in the country,”
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