2006-11-02 12:45:44

The government of Guinea Bissau has approved a public tender to grant a third mobile telecommunications license, the Guinean Ministry of Transport and Communications said in Bissau.

According to Portuguese news agency Lusa, the decision was taken at the last meeting of the Council of Ministers and no further indication of the date when the tender would be launched was given.

Guinea Bissau currently has two mobile phone operators. GuinéTel (whose shareholders are the Guinean state, with 55 percent, Portugal Telecom with 40 percent, and the remaining 5 percent spread amongst the company’s employees), and SpaceTel.

Spacete, which is a Lebanese-Luxembourg consortium linked to Investcom and Areeba, and also operates in Benin, Ghana, Guinea Conakry, the Sudan, Afghanistan, Cyprus, the Yemen and Syria, was bought in May by South African operator MTN for US$500 million.

The acquisition made it possible for MTN to become the largest telecom in Africa, together with Egyptian carrier Orascom Telecom, which operates in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia as well as in Bangladesh, Iraq and Pakistan.