Lebanon's Telecommunications Minister, Jebran Bassil has confirmed that the government is no longer actively perusing the long-planned, and oft-delayed trade sale of the country's two mobile phone networks. Speaking at a conference in Beirut, the minister suggested that a stock market floatation might be an option though.
Lebanon's two operators were originally set up under a 10-year Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) agreement, back in June 2001, the government controversially cancelled the BOT licenses held by LibanCell and Cellis which were not due to expire until 2004. The government then invited bidders to manage the networks on its behalf.
A plan to sell the networks for around US$3 billion each has been on and off for well over a year - and has been a key plank in the governments plan to reduce its massive debt mountain.
There have been reports that the economic downturn, and specifically the credit crunch would make it difficult for a trade sale of the two networks to existing telecoms operators to proceed. A floatation on the stock exchange could avoid that problem, although the government would be unable to realise the full value of the network operators in the initial offering.
"We have reached a conclusion over the past few months that the state is not a lousy merchant in the telecom field. The state can either be a partial or a full partner in any telecom company," Bassil told the Daily Star, adding that privatization did not mean the entire telecom sector should be sold to non-Lebanese. "I stand by this view and await the opportunity to offer Lebanese nationals a chance to invest in the telecom sector."
The government earns on average US$1.3 billion a year from the phone networks - equivalent to some 27% of its total tax income.
On the web: Daily Star - Mobile World
Posted to the site on 3rd March 2009
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/36322.php