China's supervisor of state-owned assets has planned to launch
restructuring of the telecommunications sector in the fourth
quarter of this year and finish the reform in March 2008, the
latest issue of Caijing Magazine reported.
Caijing, one of China's most influential financial
publications, said the State-owned Assets Supervision and
Administration Commission (SASAC), which has been mulling over the
reform since 2004, has formulated a restructuring plan, but it is
not finalized yet and needs approval from higher levels.
Currently China has four major players in the telecommunications
sector, namely China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecommunications
and China Netcom. The sharp differences among their operational
results have fused the restructuring.
According to their half-year reports, China Mobile recorded a
net profit of 37.9 billion yuan (US$4.99 billion); while that of
China Unicom, 5.65 billion yuan; China Telecommunications,13.48
billion yuan; and China Netcom, 6.713 billion yuan.
A telecommunications expert said that the SASAC has hoped that
the major operators can solve the restructuring problems through
talks among themselves, but it did not go very well.
"Directed by the government while handling in line with market
rules will be the main pattern of the restructuring," he said.
Chen Jinqiao, deputy chief engineer of the Telecommunications
Research Institute under the Ministry of Information Industry, said
the major target of the upcoming restructuring is to "realize a
harmonized development of the telecommunications market," after
which the competitors will narrow their differences in asset
scales.
Whichever way the restructuring goes, the report says, the key
influence on the development of the industry is still monopolizing
the position of State-owned capital, for private and foreign
capital, entering China's domestic telecommunications operational
market is still "a mission impossible".
(Xinhua News Agency September 4, 2007)
